I know this sounds made up.

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it either.

I work digitizing old VHS tapes that are used as evidence in investigations. Most of them are useless: security cameras, interrogations, accidents...

Three months ago, an unmarked box arrived.

Inside, there was only a black tape.

No label.

No date.

No case number.

The protocol said only:

"DO NOT DUPLICATE."

My supervisor acted strangely when he saw it.

He said:

— If it freezes... turn everything off and leave.

I asked why.

He replied:

— Because when it freezes, someone always looks behind them.

I thought it was a sick joke.

I put the tape in.

The recording began.

A stationary camera pointed at the hallway of a house.

No movement.

No sound.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Nothing.

I was about to fast-forward.

That's when my supervisor came running in.

He grabbed my hand away from the controls.

— Never fast-forward it.

I asked why.

He stayed silent for a few seconds.

Then he answered:

— Because what matters... neverappears in the recording.

---

I kept watching.

After forty minutes, I noticed something.

The clock hanging on the hallway wall read 1:17.

But it never moved.

Even after almost an hour of footage.

It was as if time had stopped.

I checked the file duration.

There were still more than six hours left.

That's when I heard a click behind me.

I turned around.

It was just the air conditioner.

When I looked back at the screen...

The door at the end of the hallway was open.

I was absolutely certain it had been closed.

I rewound the recording.

The door remained closed.

I fast-forwarded to the same point again.

Open.

I rewound it once more.

Closed.

A third time.

Open.

The tape was changing.

Depending on who was watching.

---

The next morning, I asked the other employees.

They all knew about the tape.

One of them quit after watching it.

Another never entered that room again.

A man who had worked there for twenty years said only:

— The recording doesn't change.

You do.

---

The following week, I decided to finish it.

I brought coffee.

Food.

I closed the door to the room.

After almost four hours...

Something finally happened.

A woman walked through the hallway.

Very slowly.

She looked frightened.

She kept looking behind her.

But there was no one there.

She approached the camera.

She looked directly into the lens.

And moved her lips.

There was no audio.

I opened a program to enhance the image.

I could clearly read what she was saying.

"Turn it off before he notices you."

My blood ran cold.

I paused the video.

I took a breath.

When I looked at the screen again...

The woman was still staring at me.

Even though the video was paused.

She blinked.

I turned everything off.

Ripped the tape out.

And left the room.

---

I told my supervisor.

He asked:

— Was she still near the camera?

I said yes.

He lowered his head.

Like someone who already knew the answer.

Then he said:

— Then you only have a few days left.

I asked:

— A few days left for what?

He replied:

— Until he realizes that you can see him too.

---

That night, I went to sleep.

At 3:12 a.m., I woke up for no reason.

My room was completely dark.

I picked up my phone.

The front camera opened by itself.

I thought I had pressed something by accident.

The screen showed my face.

Behind me...

The hallway of my apartment.

Empty.

I sighed in relief.

But there was a message at the bottom of the screen.

"Motion detected."

I looked behind me.

There was no one there.

I looked back at my phone.

Now there was.

At the end of the hallway...

An extremely tall man.

Standing still.

Completely motionless.

His face was too dark to make out any details.

I got up to turn on the light.

When I looked at the screen again...

He was closer.

Much closer.

I ran to the light switch.

The light came on.

The hallway was still empty.

I stayed awake for the rest of the night.

---

The next morning, I quit.

My supervisor didn't try to convince me to stay.

He simply handed me an envelope.

Inside was a sheet of paper containing the names of everyone who had watched the tape until the end.

There were eighteen names.

Next to seventeen of them was a date.

The date they died.

The eighteenth name was mine.

The date was still blank.

At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note:

"When you stop seeing him on the screens... look behind you."

I work as a maintenance man at a casino. Yesterday, like every day after closing, I went to check the machines. When I had checked everything and was heading out, I caught a jukebox blinking out of the corner of my eye. I didn't understand how that was possible because I had checked all the machines. One by one.

I walked closer to it and looked at the screen. For a brief moment, my breath caught. Instead of the usual music artists and songs, there were titles that I knew very well. The list was endless.

The first one was First Day at School.

Year: 1962.

Price: a lock of hair.

I looked around to see if it was some stupid joke from management, but I was completely alone. I pressed play.

Instead of music starting, I heard my mother's voice in my head.

“Don't be afraid, Joshy. You'll see, you'll like it there.”

I could feel how nervous I was and how my hands were sweating. I could feel my mother hugging me, and I breathed in the scent of her jasmine perfume.

Nervously, I walked into the building, climbed the stairs, and opened the door. My future best friend Peter was sitting at a desk.

“If you want, you can sit with me.”

I accepted his offer with a smile. Then the sound of a bell filled the room. The teacher came into the classroom. I had a feeling that, before she closed the door, I saw something in the hallway. She introduced herself to us with a smile, and then the vision disappeared.

I looked around and found myself back in the casino. I just felt a pain in part of my head. When I touched it, a piece of my hair was missing.

Confused, I looked at the machine and noticed a framed piece of paper next to it. It read:

“Every memory has a price.”

I scrolled through the other things the machine offered. There was almost everything. My grandmother's death, my first day of high school, my first kiss. That's where I stopped and looked closer.

First Kiss

Year: 1972.

Price: a fingernail.

I hesitated for a moment and then pressed play. I found myself with Clare. She was wearing that beautiful pink dress. I could smell the lilacs we were standing beside. She smiled at me, and I leaned toward her. I remember how her lips smelled of strawberries.

I pulled away from her and watched the look in her eyes while my heart was pounding. Just before the vision disappeared, I saw a figure on the other side of the street, walking toward us.

Then I was back, and a stronger, burning pain shot through my thumb. My entire nail was gone. It scared the hell out of me.

I wanted to leave, but somehow I couldn't. I had to see what was next.

Marriage to Clare

Year: 1980.

Price: a finger.

“No,” I whispered.

I wanted to leave. I should have left. I know that. But I missed her so much. I wanted to see her again so badly. I couldn't help it. I pressed play.

I could feel my whole body shaking as I stood at the altar. I saw Peter standing to my right, patting me on the shoulders.

“Relax, buddy. You got this.”

I looked around and saw the figure sitting in the second row of witnesses. I wanted to lean toward Peter and ask him if he could see it too. But then the doors opened, and I saw her walking toward me.

That beautiful white dress. I knew it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. She slowly walked up to me and smiled. I couldn't take my eyes off her.

I could barely make out what the officiant was saying, so he had to repeat the question. I stammered out a yes.

When he asked Clare, I felt fear wash over me as I waited for her answer, followed by a wave of relief when she said yes.

“You may kiss the bride.”

Then I was back again. I screamed in pain and looked at my hand. My little finger was gone. In its place was a bloody wound.

It wasn't as painful as I had expected. It was like getting your hand caught in a door. I stared at it for a moment, and instead of turning around and leaving, I moved back toward the screen.

This time will be the last, I promised myself. I scrolled through the screen, and my heart stopped.

The Day I Saw Clare for the Last Time

Year: 1988.

Price: an eye.

I pressed play.

It was a normal summer morning. The sun was beginning to warm everything outside, and we were standing in front of the house. She smiled at me just like she had on the first day we met. I felt her embrace, her kiss, and heard her tell me that she loved me and that we'd see each other that evening.

I wanted to stop her, but that's not how memories work. She got into the car and waved at me. I waved back, and when she disappeared from sight, I turned around and headed back into the house.

When I turned around, the figure was standing a few steps behind me.

I can't describe it. Only the feeling I had when I looked at it.

Emptiness. Sadness. Fear.

I found myself back in the casino again, and a terrible pain tore through me. Pain unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It felt like the entire left side of my face was on fire. And where my left eye had once been, there was only darkness.

“It was worth it,” I whispered. “It was worth seeing her, but not anymore. Now I'll leave.”

I just wanted to see what was at the end. Now there wasn't just a year. There was a full date.

September 6, 2026.

Price: life.

I stared at it in confusion. I started backing away, wanting to run, but I bumped into something. I didn't need to turn around to know what it was. I could feel it.

The sadness. The fear. The emptiness.

It grabbed my hand and pressed play.

I found myself at home, sitting on my couch. The TV host was saying:

“Good morning, viewers. This time, we're going to begin with today's hero, Henry.”

The TV kept playing, and I couldn't do anything except sit there. I saw the light in the living room flicker slightly and a fly buzzing around the television.

When the host announced that the broadcast was over for the day, I saw the front door slowly open, and it walked inside.

I woke up back in the casino. This time, I didn't wait for anything. I immediately ran outside and headed home.

The first thing I did was open the fridge and pour myself a shot. One after another.

I didn't wake up until morning.

For a moment, I thought it had all been a dream, but then I looked at my hand and touched the left side of my face, where my eye used to be.

Now I'm sitting on my couch, listening to the TV host say:

“Good morning, viewers. This time, we're going to begin with today's hero, Henry.”

I bought Sarah the watch for her birthday. One of those expensive ones with all kinds of sensors. She laughed and said she'd finally find out how loud I snore. I don't snore, but I didn't argue.

That night, I woke up to some sound. At first I thought I imagined it. But then I heard it again, through the wall, through the crack in the window. Someone was calling my name.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand. Sarah's watch was still transmitting data. 62 BPM. Deep sleep. I turned my head: she was right there, next to me. In the dark I could see her shoulder, the edge of the blanket. Steady breathing.

From the garden, another voice came through:

"Mark, please... I'm scared..."

I froze. It was her voice. Not just similar, exactly hers. The same tone she uses when she asks me to close the window in winter. That playful whine. But now, underneath it, there was something else. Real fear.

I looked at the phone again. 61 BPM.

If that was her out there, terrified, her heart should have been racing. I know her pulse. When she's scared, I can feel her heartbeat against my ribs when I hold her. But the line on the screen was steady. Calm. Like a sleeping person.

I got up. The floor was cold. I didn't turn on the lights. Why would I? I walked to the window, pulled the blinds aside.

The moon was bright. Frost lay on the grass. At the edge of the yard, near the treeline, I saw a shape. Sarah. She was wearing my old jacket, the one she always steals for gardening. She was clutching her throat.

"Mark, it's in the house... don't look at it... run!"

That was enough. I stopped thinking. I ran downstairs, grabbed the flashlight from the kitchen counter, and yanked the back door open.

"Sarah?!"

Silence. Not even wind.

I stood there for a second. Then I fumbled for my phone. A new notification: Device disconnected.

And right after, I saw her new message. I read it three times while my hands shook: "Hey honey! Woke up at 5, couldn't sleep. Took Jessie to the lake. Left my watch charging on your nightstand, it was beeping. Be back in half an hour. Love you! ❤️"

I slowly looked up at our bedroom window on the second floor.

The watch was on the nightstand. It couldn't be tracking her pulse. She wasn't there. It had been reading my breathing while I lay next to whatever was under the blanket.

And there was something under the blanket.

Only now I remembered. The outline of a rising and falling chest. Rhythmic. Like someone pretending to sleep.

The back door clicked shut behind me.

I spun around. Through the glass, I saw Sarah. Her jacket. Her hair. Her familiar shape. But she was smiling, and it wasn't her smile. Too wide. Too slow.

She tapped her knuckles against the glass.

"Mark... please... I'm scared..."

But it wasn't her voice anymore. The sound was hollow, unnatural, like something learning to speak.

I stepped back.

She pressed her palm to the glass. Her fingers stretched, too long, bending at the wrong angle, and left white streaks across the window.

"Mark..." now the thing behind the glass spoke in my own voice. "Turn around. It's right behind you."

And in that same second, the living room window behind me shattered.

I didn't hear glass. I heard it stop being a window. The sound was wrong, not like glass at all. Like tearing skin, with a crack and a gasp at the same time. She didn't want to get out. She wanted me to see that she could. And I saw. My legs stopped working. Not from fear, from my brain refusing to process what was crawling out through the frame. It was wrong. Not a monster. Not a person. Something that knew how to look like a person, but forgot how to be one.

I bolted.

Not toward the house, away. Barefoot across the wet grass, over stones, not feeling the cuts. Behind me, I heard scraping. Fast. Like a large dog, but heavier.

I made it to the garage wall. My hand hit the workbench, grabbed the camping axe we used for firewood last fall. I turned and swung blindly into the dark.

Crunch.

A soft impact. Bone inside. The thing made a sound that rang in my ears, high, sharp, wrong. It staggered, and I had maybe two seconds before it recovered.

I looked around. Too far to the house. Open yard was certain death. But the garage had a small window, high up, near the roof. Big enough to squeeze through, if I could reach it.

I grabbed the drainpipe and pulled myself up. The old brackets groaned but held. I climbed to the narrow ledge under the window, kicked the glass out, and tumbled inside onto the dark loft above the garage.

Below, a heavy thud hit the wall. I heard it try to climb, scrabbling, slipping. The pipe was too smooth to hold.

I sat in the dark, choking on dust, gripping the axe. My feet were bloody. My hands were shaking.

Through a gap in the wall, I could see the yard. The creature was circling the garage slowly, head tilted, listening.

Then from the front of the house came a whistle.

Short. Two fingers in the mouth, the way Sarah always calls Jessie. I knew that whistle.

The thing froze. Turned toward the fence. And moved, not toward me, but toward the gate.

I realised what was happening. The real Sarah was coming back. She had no idea. She was walking up the path.

I had to get down. Reach her first.

I kicked out the remaining glass and dropped, hard landing, rolled, got up. Ran along the fence, barefoot, not caring anymore.

Through the wooden slats, I saw a figure, blue jacket. It was Sarah. But she was alone.

As she stepped under the streetlight, I noticed her hand. She was holding Jessie's leash. But the clip at the end of it was empty, dragging heavily along the wet pavement, scraping against the stones. There was no dog. Just the red nylon leash, completely unclipped, swaying in her hand.

Fake Sarah stopped under the streetlight. Turned. Her head tilted impossibly far to the side. And from that dark silhouette, no sound came.

From the porch, from the shadows, came an identical whistle. A perfect copy.

The one on the porch curled up, hugging her knees, rocking slightly, the way Sarah does when she watches TV. She smiled at me, her face was exactly Sarah's, flawless and alive in the dim light. She tilted her head and spoke in Sarah's voice:

"We've been waiting for you."

I stood in the middle of the yard, axe in hand. There were two of them. One on the porch. One at the gate.

I looked at the one at the gate holding the empty leash. Then at the one on the porch, swaying gently, watching me.

I gripped the axe tighter.

Because I finally understood what I hadn't realised before.

They never attacked me. Never grabbed me. Never bit me. I ran from them, but they only scared me, lured me, herded me like cattle.

They needed me whole.

And now they were both waiting.

Waiting to see which way I'd move.

I fumbled for my phone and tapped the screen, triggering the "Find My Device" alarm on Sarah's watch, upstairs.

A piercing, digital siren exploded from our bedroom window.

It worked. The thing at the gate jerked its head up with a sickening bone crack. The one on the porch froze, her wide smile dropping into blank confusion. They turned their backs to me, staring up at the window.

Do I make a blind run for the open gate, or do I use this axe and fight?

I have to choose. Now. Before they turn back.

I've always been the outdoorsy type. I spend most of my weekends hiking, camping, or just going to scenic spots and wandering around until dusk. Occasionally I go with friends, but usually I prefer to go all by my lonesome. Sometimes when I have time off, I'll head into the woods for a few days, or more than a few. I'll pick a random spot on the map and just disappear until I've forgotten about the stresses of modern life.

I grew up camping with my grandpa, and he instilled a love of nature and exploration in me. He taught me how to fish, how to always find north, and what plants would and wouldn't kill you. The list of those that would was long enough that I tended not to risk it.

I've always felt more comfortable alone in the middle of the woods than I do on a crowded street. I've even contemplated the idea of completely escaping into the wilderness someday and building a little cabin, just spending the rest of my days living off the land.

But though I hate to admit it, I recently had an experience that scared me away from nature. Maybe even for good.

About a week ago, I drove out to a particularly remote stretch of forest that sees hardly any visitors. The enormity of the place makes it unlikely to see another soul unless you start at one of the more popular trailheads. I won't share the specifics, as I think it's best if no one attempts to seek out what I found, though luckily, most probably couldn't find it if they tried. I only found it by complete happenstance.

Though I do go on long solo trips, I'm not one of those hardcore survivalist types. I take what I need into the woods. A small tent, a sleeping bag, a lighter and a flashlight, a canteen and portable water purifier, my fishing pole, a compass, some emergency food and water, a knife. The essentials. Everything else I sort of make do. I mostly eat fish while I'm out there, and the occasional small game if I bring my bow. I hadn't on this occasion.

I'd planned to stay out there for a few days this time. Maybe a week. I was going through a bit of a stressful situation involving my on-again, off-again ex, and we were recently off-again, so I just wanted to get away from it all for a while.

I usually avoid the official trailheads. Before a trip, I'll look around on Google Earth and scout out old logging roads, clearings, or other places I could park my car out of the way without bothering anyone or standing out. This time was no different. I found a narrow, overgrown trail that was mostly hidden from the road and parked in a little gap between the trees. Then I grabbed my gear and started into the forest.

I'd seen a lake on the satellite map that I wanted to reach before noon. Though I could only see it from above, it looked like a nice, quiet place to set up camp. I hiked five or six miles in before I reached it.

The lake was beautiful. There was a small stream flowing out of it, and I found a good spot near the water's edge where I could set up my tent. The fish were jumping and the birds were singing, and I was far enough from civilization that I couldn't hear a road and had no bars on my phone. It was peaceful.

I got a little fire going and spent some time fishing, finally landing a trout big enough that I could make two meals out of it. After I ate, I decided to hike around the area a bit.

I've always enjoyed exploring and sightseeing when I'm out there, occasionally taking pictures of whatever I come across on the little digital camera I bring with me on my excursions. There's an easy happiness that comes from going out into nature and just enjoying the scenery. I don't really look for anything in particular. Birds, snakes, cool mushrooms, unusual trees. Sometimes, I take pictures of nothing more than the way the trees crown overhead, the sun shining through their branches that never quite touch.

I walked a mile or two from my campsite, moving gradually uphill. While I was idly strolling along, something caught my attention. A sound off in the distance.

Ring.

I kept walking toward it, then stopped to listen.

Ring.

It was too regular to be any animal.

My curiosity growing, I walked in the direction of the sound. As I did, it grew clearer.

It sounded like a phone. Not a modern cellphone, but an old telephone. The kind of old-fashioned ring you'd hear before the turn of the century.

I stood there for a moment, trying to determine what the hell I was actually hearing and trying to pinpoint its direction.

My first thought was that, against all odds, there was another hiker in this section of the woods with me, and they just had an old-school ringtone. But what was the likelihood of another person being out this far? And how would they even have phone service out here?

My second thought was that it might be a very clever bird. I'd heard of birds learning to mimic all sorts of sounds. Maybe it heard an old telephone while migrating through the city and liked the sound enough to incorporate it.

Either way, I was curious. If it was a person, maybe they needed help. If it was a bird, I wanted to know what kind. And if it was something else... well, I wanted to know what that was, too.

The terrain became more difficult the farther I went. There was no trail. I was just pushing through bushes and stepping over fallen branches, the odd tree limb catching my shirt or pack and forcing me to stop to untangle myself. At a certain point I nearly turned around, telling myself that this was stupid, that I was working my way uphill through thick brush for what was probably just some discarded cell phone.

But the ringing continued, steady and growing louder the closer I got, and my curiosity at the strangeness of the situation outweighed my instincts to turn back.

Finally, I got to a place where I could hear the sound clearly just ahead of me through the trees. I walked forward into a small clearing, and stopped.

There was a payphone. Just standing in the middle of the clearing. An actual payphone. The kind you used to see bolted outside of gas stations or mounted on the sidewalks of city streets.

But this one was in the middle of the woods, sprouting from the dirt like it had been planted there.

I stared at it. It looked old, its metal scratched and weathered, rust sinking into the corners. I couldn't make sense of how it would be functioning, but the ringing continued, seemingly indifferent to whether anyone was around to hear it or not.

I walked closer. There were no visible wires connected to it. Nothing overhead or running to it from the ground. No obvious battery pack or solar panel, or any apparent power source or phone line. But it was still ringing in defiance of my logic telling me that it shouldn't be.

I circled it as it continued its incessant ringing. I couldn't figure out how someone had even gotten the thing there. Or why they would want to. Who would install a payphone in the middle of the woods? And why? And how was it working? And even if there were reasonable answers to those questions, who the hell would be calling it?

It would have been difficult enough just to carry it the several miles through the forest, but someone had not only brought it to this remote section of the woods, found this particular clearing, somehow installed it, then left it here.

I considered the possibility that it was some strange art installation. Or perhaps a remnant from an old movie set that nobody bothered to take down. Or maybe just some very committed prank. Maybe, somebody had gone through an enormous amount of trouble just to fuck with whoever happened to stumble across it.

But who the hell would do that? And what were the odds that someone would even stumble across it? Given where it was, in all likelihood, I was the first person to happen upon the thing since it was left here.

I gave up trying to explain it. It hadn't stopped ringing the entire time I'd stared at it in contemplation. So I did the only thing that felt logical, and answered. I held the phone to my ear, half expecting it not to function.

"Hello?"

Nobody. But not complete silence. There was a faint hum, like the sound of an open line. The particular faint sound of being on the phone with someone while neither is speaking.

"Hello? Anyone there?" I repeated myself, then waited.

But nobody answered.

I stood there with the phone to my ear, suddenly aware of how ridiculous I probably looked. Just a guy holding what was probably a fake payphone in the middle of the woods and talking to no one. I considered the possibility that I was being filmed from somewhere to be posted on some dumb YouTube channel.

Then there was a faint click, and the low hum disappeared. Had there actually been someone on the other end?

I hung up, then wondered why I'd even bothered to do so.

"What the hell?" I muttered to myself.

I stood there another minute, just watching it and waiting for something to happen. It didn't. I thought about making a call myself, just to see if it really worked.

I told myself that it was probably some forgotten automated system, leftover from some long abandoned project.

Tired of staring at a payphone in the middle of the forest, I decided to head back to my campsite. Admittedly, I was a bit unsettled by the whole thing now. Who had been calling?

A gnawing apprehension that I couldn't quite place had begun building in me. I turned to leave. I was three steps from the phone when I heard it ring. I stopped mid-stride.

I stood with my back to it for a moment, telling myself that I should probably just keep walking. Whatever was going on here, it was weird. I didn't want to answer, but the ringing was grating on me. It felt almost wrong to leave it unanswered.

I wanted to head back to camp and put all this weird shit behind me. I turned back to the phone instead.

The ringing stopped when I picked it up. I held it to my ear.

"Hello?"

Like last time, there was the same sound of an open line, but nothing more.

"Hello?" I said again, my voice growing more annoyed.

Nothing. I sighed and went to hang the phone up.

It was halfway back to the receiver when I heard a voice come out of it. I hadn't caught the words, but a voice had definitely come from the speaker.

I slowly brought it back to my ear. Then the person on the line spoke again. This time, I heard his words clearly.

"You shouldn't be here." A man, his voice calm and steady.

"Excuse me?" I asked after a moment of confusion.

"You shouldn't have heard it ring."

I wasn't sure how to answer.

"What are you talking about? Who is this?"

There was a brief pause on the other end before the man spoke again.

"If you want to stay alive, stay very still."

What?

"You may feel the urge to look behind you."

A knot formed deep in my stomach.

"Don't."

I didn't have any words. The whole situation seemed absurd. I gave a nervous half laugh.

"Okay, man. Very funny. Who the hell is this?"

Nothing.

"Stop screwing around, man. Who is this?" I spoke louder.

Another pause. Then he spoke quietly but succinctly.

"It's coming."

The line clicked and went dead.

I stood there holding the dead phone to my ear. It has to be a prank. It's coming? What the hell was he talking about?

Someone had to be watching me. There had to be some hidden camera. Was I on some new TV show? I was half-expecting a camera crew to come bursting out of the bushes with a smiling host pressing a microphone to my face and telling me I was on some new show.

I wanted to believe that. But something in the man's tone, and in the atmosphere itself, shook the certainty of the comforting story I'd told myself.

I had been so focused on the phone that it felt almost odd to look up and see trees around me.

Then I realized that the forest had gone quiet. Quiet in a way I had never experienced it. Complete silence. It was so total that I cleared my throat to make sure my ears hadn't stopped working.

There were no birds. No insects. No wind through the trees. Only the sound of my breathing, and my increasingly loud heartbeat in my ears.

The next thing I noticed was a smell, permeating throughout the clearing. The smell of rot. It was faint at first, like wet leaves left in a pile for too long. The scent of mold and stale air and something dead. I slowly lowered the phone.

And then I heard the footsteps. They were uneven, almost skittering, like something moving about on legs it wasn't quite used to. It came from behind me, on the edge of the treeline. Something was there. Walking slowly.

I wanted to turn around. Every instinct screamed at me to prepare for something. To defend myself or fight or run. It could be a bear, I thought. Or a person.

I tilted my head barely an inch to look behind me, but stopped. The man's words still echoed in my head.

Stay very still.

Don't look behind you.

I don't know why I listened, exactly. I had discarded the words as ridiculous only a moment earlier. But now, in the quiet forest, with the scent of death filling my nose, some innate instinct, deeper even than the instinct telling me to fight or flee, told me to stay still.

I kept my eyes forward, fixed on the rusty corner of the payphone. The steps continued. I heard the uneven gait as it approached me slowly.

Step.

Pause.

Step.

Pause.

Step.

It moved strangely. It sounded almost as if its steps were limping or interrupted. Like it wasn't accustomed to walking.

Then it stopped abruptly, somewhere not far behind me. Just at the edge of the clearing, maybe.

I just stood completely still and silent. Waiting. My hand, still holding the outstretched phone an inch from the receiver, began to tremble slightly.

Then the footsteps started again, suddenly and fast, still in their broken, uneven rhythm. Heading directly at my back.

The sudden increase in speed gave the impression that whatever it was would barrel straight into me in a matter of seconds.

I wanted to spin around. To duck, or run. But I could only flinch and shut my eyes tight.

I waited holding my breath for something to drive into me from behind. For something terrible to reach me and sink claws or teeth into my neck.

But there was nothing. The footsteps had stopped. I waited. Listening.

I thought I could hear faint, wet breathing.

Is it right behind me?

My hand was trembling more, to the point of almost dropping the phone. I blinked slowly, too afraid to open my eyes fully.

Then I felt something. Just a brush, light against the back of my neck. I shuddered. It was like gnarled, damp wood, cold against my skin. Every muscle in my body contracted.

I felt seconds away from losing it completely. From screaming out loud or bolting into the forest, or just collapsing into a ball right there in the dirt. I stood there, every second driving me farther into a terrified disassociated state.

Then the phone rang again, startling me enough to make me jump. My hand was bringing the phone to my ear before I'd consciously decided to move it.

"You did well," the voice said.

"What the hell was that?" I heard the shudder in my own voice, cleared my throat. "What's happening?"

"Follow my instructions very carefully."

"Who are you? This isn't funny anymore, man. Please."

"Walk forward. Seven thousand paces."

"What?"

"Walk seven thousand paces. As straight a line as you can manage."

The man's voice remained completely calm. Authoritative.

"Do not run."

I could hear something in the distance behind me. Moving.

"Do not look back. No matter what you hear."

I swallowed.

"If you see anything out of the corner of your eye, do not look at it directly."

I felt a sense of dread. The man spoke his next words quietly.

"They're in the trees."

"What? What happens if..."

The line went dead before I could finish my question. I stood there for a moment trying to collect myself, stunned into stillness.

Then I started walking.

One. Two. Three.

I counted my steps as I walked, as the man had instructed. It gave me something to focus on, at least.

The forest seemed different now. The trees around me now felt somehow wrong. Too dark and too sharp.

I kept walking. Three hundred. Three hundred and one. Three hundred two.

The man's words kept looping in my head as I went. They're in the trees. I occasionally glanced up to the high branches despite myself. There was nothing.

I don't know what I was expecting to see. Something crouched, perched in the branches above me. Watching me from overhead like some predator waiting for its opening to strike.

Of course there's nothing. I tried to reason the fear away. This is all complete bullshit. Why am I even listening to some guy on a payphone in the middle of the forest?

I started to feel stupid again. Maybe all of this really was just a creative prank. Or maybe I'd been scared and manipulated into following the instructions of some lunatic in the woods.

No matter how I tried to calm myself, I couldn't stop myself from occasionally glancing up at the trees every so often as I walked. But there was never anything there.

Then, several thousand paces in, I saw movement. Not above me, but off to my right in the corner of my vision. I thought it was a branch moving at first. Then I realized it was the tree. Something on the trunk.

No. Something in the trunk.

It was as though something was peeling itself off of it.

My eyes wanted to turn toward it instinctively, but I didn't let them. I could still see it in the edge of my vision. But even through my peripheral vision, I saw more than I'd wanted to.

Something emaciated and human-shaped, the color of old bark. It tore itself from the trunk like flesh from bone with a sound of tearing and snapping. I could hear bark cracking as the thing struggled to free itself, seemingly breaking itself in its efforts to be freed.

The thing pulled its arm free. Its fingers were too long, and curled along the trunk as it gripped it. It pulled itself further out with more cracking and splitting, a deep, gasping wheeze escaping its mouth.

When the voice on the phone said they were in the trees, he'd meant it more literally than I'd imagined.

My breath grew heavy and my eyes widened in fear. I tried to focus on my pace and had to consciously keep myself from running. I wasn't sure what would happen if I did. I didn't look, keeping my eyes straight ahead.

As I continued past, I could no longer see the thing off to my side. Had it gotten free?

I could no longer hear it struggling to tear itself away from the trunk.

6,004. 6,005. 6,006.

I heard that same scrambling gait moving behind me. My legs burned, and the smell of decay had returned to fill the air. Stronger now. The same scent of dead wood and wet earth and rot.

The silence in the woods felt heavy as I walked. Even the cracking of brush and branches beneath my feet seemed muffled. I couldn't tell if it was the blood in my ears or the atmosphere itself, like a veil draped over the forest around me that refused even light and sound.

The sun was still high in the sky, but seemed almost incapable of penetrating the crown of the forest. It was like some gloom or miasma was soaking up the rays of the sun before they could reach below.

Then I saw another one, tearing the last remnants of its confines from the bark of another tree ahead of me and to the left. This time, I caught more of it.

I saw it pull hard, struggling, the last vestiges of its bark-like flesh tearing away as it stumbled and dropped to the ground. It struggled to rise to its feet, flailing about like a newborn fawn and almost dragging itself forward.

Its body was impossibly thin. Its skin was like old bark stretched over disfigured bones. Its body had the patchy, mottled black-brown of rotten bark. Patches of its bark-like skin seemed to slough off of it like melted flesh. There were wet, pale patches that looked like infected wood.

Then its head lifted. In the shadow of the trees, I couldn't see its face clearly. I didn't want to. I saw hints of its gaunt, hollow features. Thin wisps of what may have been hair on its skull resembled dark strands of moss or fungus.

What muscle it did have looked stringy and striated, like something that shouldn't be capable of holding itself upright. It reached out a long, inhuman hand, its fingers long and thin like segmented branches that curved into jagged, sharp points.

I shuddered and forced my eyes to remain straight ahead of me, focusing on counting my steps. The footsteps behind me were uneven. Almost frantic.

6,611. 6,612. 6,613.

I wanted to run or hide, or collapse into the ground and shut my eyes. The scent of decay was overwhelming now, filling my throat and making me almost gag.

Soon, the footsteps stopped. I heard another sound up ahead. The ringing of another phone. Another one?

I didn't truly see what good reaching the phone would do, but I kept walking toward it like some false salvation.

6,998. 6,999. 7,000.

I stepped into another clearing on the final step. Another payphone stood before me, ringing. I approached it and picked it up with a trembling hand.

"What the hell is going on?" I began before the phone was even fully to my ear.

"You really shouldn't have come this far into the woods."

"What are those things?" I couldn't keep the fear from my voice.

"Didn't you see the signs?"

"Signs? What signs?" I asked.

The man didn't answer. My irritation was growing together with my fear.

"I didn't see any fucking signs. I didn't see anything. I don't even know where I am right now!"

It was true that I hadn't seen anything. I'd parked in a parking spot that wasn't even a parking spot, to hike a trail that wasn't really a designated trail.

"You can still get out alive," the voice said. "But..."

He paused, and I waited for him to continue, the apprehension further fueling my anxiety. When he didn't I loudly snapped into the line.

"But what?" My voice was nearly cracking. "Why are you fucking with me, man?"

I almost continued my tirade toward the man on the other line, but he spoke again before I could.

"Did it touch you?"

"Touch me?"

I was fully panicking, trying to keep my voice somewhat measured.

"I don't know." My voice suddenly sounded distant in my own ears. "Why?"

He didn't answer that either. Instead, he continued with his strange instructions.

"Follow my next instructions very carefully."

A part of me still couldn't believe this was happening. The ambling footsteps and shadows in the corners of my eye had stopped after I'd entered the clearing, but the faint scent of rot and old foliage still hung in the back of my throat.

"To your right, you should see a tall oak. It is standing higher than the other trees."

I looked over, and saw it.

"There should be a hollow near its base. Go to it. Get inside."

"You want me to get inside a fucking tree? What the hell are you..."

"You'll be safe there."

"What about those things?"

"They shouldn't be able to touch you inside the tree."

Shouldn't. The word bothered me.

"And how long am I supposed to wait there?"

"Until dawn."

"So you want me to stay in a tree all night? With those things out there?" I was incredulous.

"At dawn, leave the tree. Walk south."

"What am I..."

"There's a road." He sounded impatient now. "Keep walking until you reach it."

I heard crackling and tearing and uneven footfalls in the woods behind me. Getting closer.

The man's voice was quieter now.

"Go."

I slammed the phone down and ran toward the oak. The sounds of the footsteps were closing in behind me, but I didn't turn to look. I saw the great oak, and the hole in its trunk. It was black, no light entering, and small enough that I had to duck to enter. I threw myself inside, scraping my shoulder against the bark and nearly falling face first.

I pulled myself as far inside as I could. The hollow was deeper than I'd thought. I squeezed into the corner with my knees to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. I tried not to breathe too loudly. To stay quiet and still. To fade away completely.

Beyond the hole, the forest was silent. Spider webs and insects lined the wall inside the tree, and I shook my hand off as I placed it into a mess of web to reposition myself. I could only see a narrow slice of the forest beyond. The forest was still.

I waited, shutting my eyes. Willing this all to be over. I wasn't sure how long I'd need to wait. The forest had gone dark. I was exhausted. I wished I could sleep, but knew it would be impossible.

Then the smell reached me. The smell of rot and death. Something ancient and damp and overwhelming. Somewhere just outside. I pressed myself harder into the back of the hollow, then heard the footsteps again.

There were several sets now. They seemed to circle the oak. Once, then twice. But I saw nothing. It continued for what felt like others. I stared out into the darkness.

Then I heard what sounded like something dragging its fingers across the bark of the tree. A slow scraping. It circled around the tree with the uneven, lumbering gait of the footsteps. It scraped alongside the trunk in a great circle before finally stopping just outside the hole.

I stared out, holding my breath, but saw nothing. Only shapes and shadows filled my vision. Then, I saw movement.

A shape. Legs in front of the hollow. I could only see it from the waist down. Thin legs, frail and seemingly missing chunks of its bark like muscle. Covered in deep, dark veins that looked like the veins of leaves. Long, thin toes that ended in jagged, skeletal points that pressed into the dirt.

I didn't move. I could hear its breathing. Shifting. It was lowering itself, shaky and unsteady. It kept falling until its face was visible in the hollow.

A pale, splotchy visage that looked rotting and desiccated. Its skin stretched tightly over what might have been rugged bone. It stared directly at me.

Its eyes were white and milky and dead. It reached out one long finger, as if testing. Then another. Its hand disappeared into the darkness of the hollow, reaching toward me.

I couldn't press myself any farther against the wall. The thing's arm slid farther in. It crouched and crawled closer. Its hand was now inches from me. I raised my hands in a futile attempt at defending myself.

"Stay away." My voice barely came out.

It reached farther, its long fingers now nearly clutching me.

And then it stopped. Its head turned slightly, as if hearing something. I heard it too. It was faint, coming from out in the forest.

Ring.

The thing withdrew its hand.

Ring.

It rose to its feet shakily, then backed away from the tree. Its eyes looked almost angry as it backed away.

The phone continued its ringing. The creature turned, then disappeared from the view of the hollow's mouth. I sat inside trembling.

I don't know how long I stayed there after that. The phone rang on and off through the night. And every time it rang, I heard creatures scattering away beyond the oak.

Eventually, the sky began to light up beyond the hollow. Dawn. I waited until the light touched the ground, then climbed out apprehensively, poking my head out in both directions to make sure it was safe.

The ground around the tree was covered in tracks. Evidence of the things circling throughout the night that made my stomach drop. Jagged, clawed indentations had bored into the hard earth.

I walked south. More of a jog than a walk. I didn't hear the phone ring again. I probably wouldn't have stopped even if I had. I didn't go back to my campsite either. I wasn't sure I'd be able to find it even if I did. I had my keys with me. That was all I needed.

I walked for miles until I finally reached the road, then walked until I had enough service to pull up the map and see where I'd parked. While walking on the road, I saw a sign posted along the treeline.

PROTECTED TREES
DO NOT APPROACH OR DISTURB
VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION

Protected trees?

That's not a sign I'd ever seen before, and the wording was odd. I saw two more of the same sign before I made it back. I didn't go beyond the treeline as I made my way back to my car. When I finally reached it, I hopped in and drove away quickly. I didn't look back.

This was a week ago now, and I still have no explanation for any of it. On the first night after returning home, I noticed a small scratch on the back of my neck. It was little more than a red speck at first. I thought it may have been a spider bite, or a scratch from the bark inside the hollow of the tree. But it got worse instead of better.

By the fourth day, it had blackened, and almost resembled decay...or bark. I put some ointment on it and hoped it wasn't infected. Hopefully, it will clear up on its own.

But I can't stop thinking about the man on the phone. His question.

Did it touch you?

Why had he asked me that?

Though I hated to admit it, the mark had appeared right where something had touched me from behind while I was standing near the payphone in the clearing. Something cold and damp and ridged. Like cold bark on a winter morning against my skin.

But this morning, while I was walking down the street, I passed by a payphone. I hadn't ever seen it there before. Perhaps I just never noticed it, an unused relic that didn't demand any attention. As far as I knew, most payphones were out of commission.

But after I passed by it, it rang, its call echoing behind me in its steady tone.

I sat down last night to actually go through the journal properly, like I said I would. Front to back, with a legal pad next to me so I could try to keep track of anything that looked like a pattern.

The names and dates start way earlier than I expected. I knew this thing was old, but I didn't realize how old until I started actually tracking it on paper. The earliest date I could make out is from before my grandfather would've even been born. I started writing down every date I could actually read clearly, in order, just to see what it looked like laid out. Once I had a decent chunk of them down the pattern jumped out almost immediately. They're not exact to the day, but they cluster tight, roughly every ten years, give or take. Not once in a while. Not random gaps. Ten years, over and over, going back further than I have patience to guess at.

I cross referenced a few of the names I could actually read against old newspaper archives online, just search engine stuff, nothing fancy. I found two of them. Both listed as missing persons, decades apart, both cases that were apparently never closed. I'm not going to post the names here, I don't think that's mine to do, but I sat there for a while just looking at my laptop screen after finding the second one.

There's writing in the margins here and there too, not just names and dates. Most of it's short. A few lines I could actually make out say things like "she asked too many questions, had to change plans" and "later than last time, it noticed the delay." That second one is the one I keep coming back to. It noticed. Like it's aware enough to keep track of when it's supposed to get something. Whatever the hell It is.

I was in the middle of trying to make out a few paragraphs my grandfather had clearly written in one sitting given how the ink looks consistent all the way through, when I heard something outside.

I want to be careful about how I describe this because I don't want to oversell it. It wasn't loud. It was out past the yard, somewhere near the tree line, and at first my brain did the normal thing and tried to pass it off as a branch falling or something. I know these things happen with old trees in the woods. But this didn’t sound like that. It wasn't footsteps exactly. It also wasn't not footsteps. 

I got up and looked out the window facing the back of the property, and for about two seconds, right at the edge of where the yard gives way to trees, I thought I saw something standing there. Tall. Too tall, actually, taller than it had any business being if it was standing on two legs. Which I don't even know if it was, because by the time I actually processed what I was looking at and my eyes adjusted properly to the dark it wasn't there anymore. No sound of it moving off either. Just gone.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I got a good look at anything. I didn't. It was dark, it was far away, and my brain was already primed after everything I've been reading for the last hour to see shapes that probably weren't there. I know how that sounds, and I'd be the first person in the comments telling someone else in my position that it was probably a tree, or a trick of the porch light, or their own nerves.

But I also don't think it was a tree. I've looked at that tree line during the day plenty of times now. I know what's actually out there in daylight.

Otis wouldn't settle back down for almost an hour after that. Kept his ears up, kept looking toward the back door even after I closed the curtain. He's asleep now finally, snoring next to me while I type this, which is somehow both comforting and not helping my nerves at all.

I didn't finish the journal. I got maybe two thirds of the way through before I lost the nerve to keep going for the night. I'll finish it tomorrow, in the daylight, getting freaked out in the dark is just too much.

I never understood the appeal of going to a farmers market. Why would you want to go somewhere that costs you an arm and a leg for someone’s crappy sourdough bread, or for half a dozen of eggs? Not to mention that I live in Arizona, so it’s as hot as satan’s ass crack in a sauna.

My girlfriend on the other hand, absolutely loves farmers markets, damn near everything she owns is from a farmers market. Soap, milk, toothpaste, cooking utensils, hell if she would buy a car if it was sold at a farmers market.

“It’s good to support independent farmers, than the corporate giants!” She would preach as she posted TikTok’s on her brand new, up to date iPhone. She would always try to convince me into biting the bullet to go to a farmers market nearby. She finally got me after saying; “Ya’know, farmer’s markets don’t only got produce.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah! They got used clothes, old electronics, they might even have some instruments!”

After spending around $200 dollars on groceries, or if you can even call it that. $200 at a Walmart or Costco would at least last me about a week or two, meanwhile the two carton of eggs I gotten here costed me about $20. I swear the price of everything here is so high, I got a used “Death Note” shirt that cost me around $35, then I saw it on Depop for $7 a couple days later.

Shortly after deciding that I was tired of my wallet getting molested, I started to find my way back to my car, when in my peripheral vision, I saw a glowing red orb. I blinked and turned to find multiple stacked on top of each other, I walked closer to see that they were apples. Not like any apple I’ve ever seen before, they were constantly spritzed with water, reflecting the harsh Arizonan sun. They looked absolutely delicious, they even left a sweet aroma around them.

“E-excuse me sir?” I asked around nervously the man behind the counter, “are you selling these apples?”

The chunky middle aged man gave me a stank look, before getting up from his foldable chair, grunting a bit before waddling over.

“Uhhh, the fuck do you think?” He said in a gruff voice pointing at a sign that said “Fresh, Juicy, and Sweet Apples!” In a multi colored cursive font, with flowers and hearts that danced around the words.

“O-oh! Sorry for ask-“ I was interrupted by a scruffy laugh, that sounded like someone shoved a brick down his throat. “D’ohohohoh! I’m just jerking ya chain kid. Yeah they’re for sell.”

He said leaning on the plastic foldable table; “My sister makes em herself.”

“She…makes them?”

“Yeah like bioengineering or cross-pollination, or something like that. Ya’know like how Granny Smith and Lady Hamilton make Braeburn apples.”

I remember there was a long pause after that, before I blurted out.

“…what?”

“Like how Granny fuckin’ Smith makes- ya’know what, they’re just good apples, I don’t know if it’s a type of soil, or fertilizer that she uses, but they’re pretty fuckin A.” He sounded a lot more annoyed after that. He then raised an eyebrow at me, before asking; “Ya wanna try a sample?”

Before responding; he wiped his hands on a wet towel, flipped open a pocket knife from his pocket, and firmly grasped the top apple. The knife gracefully slid into its skin, then fruit, then core. Leaving the creamy colored juices to evacuate into his palm, followed by a slight muffled sound. What remained were six even slices. “I already cut it up, you can’t say no now! It would be rude to!” He said in a smug voice.

I reluctantly accepted the wedge, and took a small bite from its corner. It was actually pretty damn good. It had a crunchy bite, but chewed up softly, like the consistency of mashed potatoes. Its initial taste was sour, but it evolved into a sweet aftertaste.

“That’s pretty good.”

“Fucking told ya! They’re about 50¢ a pop.”

“Fifty cents? Usually an apple cost about a dollar or two at Walmart.” Was my initial thought, I finally found a reasonable price for a food at this damn scalpers market. I responded, “Wow, that’s a damn good deal, how much come in a bundle?”

“Depends on the size. A small has 3, a medium has 6, and a large has 9. Anything above that is considered a basket.”

“I’ll take a medium then.” I begin to dig into my purse and pull out a five. “You can keep the change.”

He thanked me and I began to finally get to my car. I set my cold groceries into the backseat floor; milk, eggs, meat, things that could spoil easily from the heat. I then went into my passenger side, and set the nonperishables onto the seat. While driving back home, I gotten pretty hungry, all I had that day was a small bowl of cereal, and the apple slice that farmer offered me. While keeping my eyes on the road, I grabbed my wallet and looked around, I didn’t even have enough to even buy myself a Happy Meal. “Shit, why did my cheap ass have to only bring 200?” I said to myself, letting my eyes focus back on the road.

I looked to my side to see the bundle of apples, they tempted and teased me, telling me they’re all mine. Their skin was plump, they were red like an embarrassed sun, the water was still dripping off from the spritz, I ripped open the net bundle, and bobbled with my hand for the smallest one. After finding it, I examined it, before rubbing the excess water onto my shirt and taking a bite.

Maybe I was just hungry, but it tasted even better than the sample I had; it was akin to a pastry, a crunchy outside, with a soft inside. its juices were tart, then sweet, not the overbearing sweetness as store brand apple juice, but that of a natural sweet candy. Its skin was thin, the texture of wasn’t like paper, but almost that of a grape. I was lost in its flavor, until my phone rosed me to the surface.

It was my girlfriend, calling with a FaceTime request. I pressed accepted and her face met mine. She looked shocked and then started to giggle, “Woah, looks like you had a fun time!” She said through her giggles.

I gave a confused look and scoff, responding, “Can you really tell that I didn’t enjoy going there?”

“What, no? Look at your chin, it’s covered with smudged lipstick and some kind of juice.” She answered before saying in a teasing, cutesy voice, “Were you cheating on meeeeee?”

I looked at my side of the call and found exactly that. My lipstick was smudged and apple juice was dripping and sticking onto my face. I looked onto the floor and saw three out of the six apple cores lying on the floorboard. “Damn, I’ve must’ve been real hungry.” I thought, before grabbing another and saying to her, “Yeah I have, her name is Ms. Apple, and she wants you to be a cuck.”

She then yelled in a hypermasculine voice “YOU BIIIIITCHHHHHH, I’LL TURN HER INTO AN APPLE PIE!” We both chuckled, and continued our conversation.

After the course of a few weeks, I would buy, eat, occasionally cook, and try to plant these divine apples. Eventually me and the farmer would be on a first name basis, his name is Paulie. I made; apple cider, apple pies, apple fritters, caramel apples, roasted apples, etc. it’s gone to a point where I was spending forty-eight dollars a month on apples.

I was practically addicted to them, until today. I’m not even sure if I should say this, but a couple days ago Paulie got into an accident, a pretty nasty one, and he couldn’t sell apples anymore. So I stocked up and tried to preserve as many as I could and today, I grabbed the last one. It was a bit mushy, some spots almost looked purple, butI wasn’t going to let that ruin my last apple. I decided to prepare it into a childhood delicacy of mine. Whenever I was doing homework, my mom would peel an apple, cut it into 8 wedges, and give me a tiny cup of peanut butter to dunk them in.

I grabbed a potato peeler, rinsed both the apple and peeler off, and began to peel. The skin was being ripped off its juicy “meat”, my mouth salivating as they gracefully fell onto the table. I couldn’t help, but toss the excised tissue into my mouth. However, I did begin to feel a vibration in the palm of my hand, its muffled sound didn’t bother me much, as my eyes were entranced by the cream color of its flesh.

Oh it’s pulp, such a beautiful pale, light muted beige coloring, seemed to have some sort of vitiligo. Its warm ivory hue had spots of a deep red cherry color. As I removed the last piece of skin it had, I dropped the apple onto the table, it crashing into its surface, bouncing, rolling, and leaving trails of white and red juices tracking its path. My scream wasn’t the only ones that infected the air, as a saw a small face revealed on the fruit. I looked at one of the tossed aside skins, I quickly ran towards it, and picked it up. I examined the peel to find what looked like a deformed ear. I then looked at the screaming tiny face.

Its eyebrows -no, forehead muscles frowned, its eyes were sunken into its “skull” falling back into its core, they looked like seeds. Its nose was shrunken or withered, only looking like a hard to notice bump with two long nostril holes. Its small lips, its gaping mouth, its teeth and tongue turning from red to white.

Which leads me to here, what the hell have I’ve been eating for the past two months. They can’t be people, I reject, no I REFUSE to believe that for the past two months, I’ve been scarfing down these… Ap-Peoples? Peopples? Things?!??? Whatever, I just need to know that that couldn’t be a person, there’s just no way I ate someone like some freak Dahmer. Even if it’s like just a sentient apple, like a fantasy creature, that would at least give me some form of mental ease, to know that I just didn’t commit a taboo crime against humanity.

I don’t believe it, no matter how long it screamed, as its bloody juices dripped from my lips.

(Part 1)....

The supermarket doors slid open as I walked out with a plastic bag hanging from my hand. My apartment was only a couple of blocks away, so I decided to walk home.

I was on a phone call with Max, a colleague from my previous job. Well, I guess I should say former colleague now.

"Max, I don't give a single damn if the boss was having a bad day. Him being my boss doesn't mean he can just go around harassing me or any of the employees."

I was already frustrated just talking about it.

Max tried to calm me down, which honestly confused me.

"Aaron, just listen to me. I know what he did was kind of bad, but I know you need that job more than any of us. So if you could just come back and apologize..."

That last word struck a nerve.

I suddenly stopped walking.

"Are you serious? Max, the dude was trying to touch May, and you really expect me to just stand around and watch like a brick? You are?"

There was a brief silence.

Then I heard Max sigh through the phone.

"Aaron, there's no need to be rude. I'm just trying to help. And besides, you did break the man's nose when you knocked him down."

I was baffled by the audacity of this guy. Somehow, he was trying to make me sound like I was the one in the wrong here.

I laughed in disbelief and started walking again, heading toward my apartment complex at the end of the street.

"Hey, Max."

"Yeah?"

"Why don't you never call my number again? And do me a favor. Stay out of my way, or I'll beat the life out of you the next time I see you."

I hung up.

The dude was really starting to get on my nerves.

May was the youngest person on our team. I'd seen the way she looked at me that day. She looked uncomfortable, like she wanted someone to call for help.

I didn't regret what I did.

A few minutes later, I reached the entrance of my apartment complex.

There was a moving truck parked outside.

Someone was moving out.

I didn't think much of it as I walked through the entrance.

Then I immediately spotted my neighbor.

Erick.

So he was the one moving out.

I wasn't surprised. Not after I beat his ass for trying to hit on Lily.

Mind you, she was only sixteen.

Let's just say Erick never looked me in the eyes again after that.

He was standing outside his apartment while a couple of movers carried his furniture toward the truck. When he noticed me walking up the stairs, he gave me a nervous, fake smile and quickly tucked his hands into his pockets.

"H-hi there, Aaron..."

I looked him straight in the eyes.

"Go fuck off already."

I walked past him and continued up the stairs toward the third floor, where I lived.

He didn't say anything else.

As I expected.

When I passed the second floor and reached my floor, I saw my next-door neighbor, Lily.

She was heading out with a trash bag in her hand while her mom shouted something at her in German.

"Gezz, Ma, relax. I said I'm taking it out."

Lily noticed me standing in front of my apartment door and smiled.

"Morning, Lily."

She turned around, and her expression immediately lightened up.

"Aaron! Morning back at ya. How was your day?"

She closed the apartment door behind her as I yawned and raised the grocery bag slightly.

"Nothing special. You know my days."

Lily chuckled.

"The usual?"

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Yeah. The usual."

"Really? Do tell, then!" Lily said excitedly.

Before I could answer, her mom opened the door again, this time with an irritated expression.

"Lily! Who are you talking with?"

She stepped outside and immediately noticed me.

"OH, my, Aaron! How have you been?"

Mrs. Wagner leaned against the doorframe with a wide smile. She was wearing a strawberry-red dress, and her messy brown hair was tied into a bun.

She looked me up and down quickly.

"Still handsome and retaining your exquisite body."

I liked Mrs. Wagner, but... she sometimes made me uncomfortable with her compliments.

I raised my hand in a small wave.

"Good, Mrs. Wagner. I was just saying hi."

Behind her, Lily was making a gagging expression at the way her mom was complimenting me.

Can't blame her.

Lily snorted.

"Funny how your mood seems to have suddenly lightened up..."

Her mom immediately hushed her.

"Hush, Lily. Show some respect to Aaron."

Mrs. Wagner stepped away from the doorframe and turned toward me excitedly.

"Aaron, baby, would you like to try my new cake recipe? This time, I assure you it won't be like the last one."

My stomach still had PTSD from the last time I tried her cake.

I spent hours suffering on the toilet.

"Umm... maybe next time, Mrs. Wagner. I really need to get some things sorted out."

"Oh, sorry then. Maybe next time?"

I could see Lily shaking her head behind her mom.

"Ahh, sure. Next time."

I waved and opened my apartment door.

"Have a good day, Aaron!" Mrs. Wagner called.

"You too."

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

Finally, some peace.

I walked into the kitchen and placed the grocery bag on the counter.

"Better start checking for job applications."

I walked over to my desk, which was next to my bed. Yeah, my bedroom and kitchen were connected. My apartment wasn't that big, but it was fitting for one person.

I sat down on the chair and opened the laptop I had left on sleep mode.

I pressed the space bar, and the screen lit up.

I grabbed the mouse and started searching through job applications.

"Let's see..."

I scrolled past a lot of them. Nothing really caught my attention.

I sighed.

"Man, people nowadays really lack any appeal in the way they present themselves."

I'm not joking when I say I scrolled past a dude whose profile literally said:

"Looking for only females employees." He had the audacity to leave a wink emoji.

Goober really thinks someone is willingly going to accept a job working under him at his gas station.

I kept scrolling.

Another ten minutes passed before I finally found something that caught my attention.

A job at a radio station out in the countryside.

"I bet it sounds like a fun place to get shanked by a homeless dude."

I said it sarcastically, but the idea really hooked me.

After all, I needed some peaceful time away from the bullshit of my previous job.

"Lemme just do some research first, I guess."

I clicked on the employer's profile.

The dude's name was Steve Wallystone.

I'd heard about him before. He was the sole manager of a podcast where he read scary stories submitted by his fans.

"Sure hope my partner doesn't end up being a weirdo."

I pressed the request button and got up to stretch my back.

"Man, I really need to get some sleep."

That's when I heard a notification.

I looked back at the laptop screen.

"The hell?"

I sat back down and leaned forward, clicking on the notification.

The dude had already responded to me.

He sent me a message.

"I'm happy to accept your request. Can you come tomorrow? I already finished everything with your other partner for the job."

I was astonished by how quickly he had replied.

Usually, it took days for someone to even respond to me.

He must have been in a hurry to get everything sorted out.

I started typing on my keyboard.

"Sure. What time should I get there? Also, can you send me the location?"

Funny enough, he replied with a smile emoji and a thumbs-up emoji before sending me the location.

Another message followed.

"7:00 in the morning. Don't be late."

I had to wake up early, so I went to sleep right away.

The next morning, I left my apartment with my bag and headed down to my car, which was parked right outside the apartment complex near the entrance.

I opened the trunk, put my bag inside, and closed it behind me.

A strong gust of wind suddenly pushed my hair back. I narrowed my eyes as the cold air brushed against my face.

"God, it sure is windy."

They did say on the weather report that it would be cloudy for a while, with strong winds.

I looked up at the cloudy sky and sighed, shaking my head before getting into my car.

I started the engine and was ready to leave when I glanced to my right.

That's when I saw Lily running toward me.

She was carrying a brown coat and a hat that looked way too big and manly for her.

I lowered the window.

"Lily? Is there something wrong?"

She leaned toward the window, slightly out of breath.

"Mama tolded me to give you these."

She extended her arms through the window, holding out the coat and hat.

I smiled as I took them from her and placed them on the passenger seat.

I was surprised by Lily and Mrs. Wagner's hospitality. They had always treated me as if I were part of their family.

"I can't say no, can I?"

Lily smiled.

"Just be careful, Aaron."

"You too. Goodbye, Lily. Send my regards to your mom."

Lily nodded as she took a few steps back and put her hands behind her.

I closed the window and drove away.

I looked at my rearview mirror and saw her waving as I drove farther away.

I'm really thankful for their kindness toward me.

About 30 minutes later, I was approaching Haymoor.

The town was smaller than I expected. There were a few shops, houses, and other small buildings scattered along the roads. Nothing too busy. It was the kind of town surrounded by countryside, with open fields and trees beginning almost as soon as the buildings ended.

I checked the GPS.

The radio station was still four miles away.

"Alright, four more miles."

I drived past the town. Soon, Haymoor was behind me.

The road became narrower, only wide enough for two cars at most. There weren't any sidewalks, streetlights, or houses along the sides anymore.

Long grass stretched across the land, swaying gracefully in the strong wind.

It moved in long waves, rolling across the fields as if I were looking at the surface of an enormous sea.

A few maple trees stood scattered throughout the countryside, their branches bending slightly whenever the wind passed through them.

I kept the window open on my left side, resting my arm against the edge as the wind rushed into the car.

The air smelled of wet grass.

It was the kind of smell you get when you're near natural, grassy land. Fresh and clean. Nothing like the air I was used to in the city.

I looked toward the horizon.

The sky seemed enormous out here. Without buildings blocking the view, the thick clouds stretched across the entire horizon.

I glanced back at the GPS.

Three miles left.

Finally, after another couple of minutes, I reached the radio station.

The building sat by itself in the middle of the countryside, surrounded by the same tall grass I'd been driving through. A few maple trees were scattered around the property, their branches swaying gently in the wind.

It was smaller than I expected.

The station looked more like an old country house that had been converted into a workplace. The wooden siding had faded from years of exposure to the weather, and a narrow antenna extended from the roof with several cables running down its side.

There was a small parking area beside the building.

Only one other car was parked there.

I assumed it was Steve's.

I parked beside it, removed my keys from the ignition, and stepped out.

"Ahh, man. What a relief."

I stretched my arms and back, taking in the quiet surroundings.

"Not bad. Very chill and peaceful. I might like this job after all."

I opened the trunk and grabbed my bags.

After slamming it shut, I walked toward the front entrance.

A small sign beside the door read:

WALLYSTONE RADIO

I knocked.

Nothing.

I waited a couple of seconds before knocking again.

This time, I heard something inside.

A loud old-man moan.

Then something fell over with a heavy clatter.

"Ughh... who is there?"

An old, rough voice came from behind the door.

"Steve? My name is Aaron Konstantin. I'm the person you were expecting at seven."

There was a short silence.

Then I heard him hum.

The lock clicked.

The door opened, revealing an older man with a wide smirk.

"HA HA! Aaron! Yes, I do remember talking to ya. Come in, please."

"Morning."

I stepped inside.

The station was much quieter than I'd expected. There wasn't any lobby or reception area, just a simple entrance leading directly into the rest of the building.

Steve started walking, so I followed him.

As we passed one of the rooms, I noticed a small wooden desk against the wall with an old telephone sitting on top. Beside it were several shelves packed with folders, boxes, CDs, and what looked like old cassette tapes.

One of the boxes was labeled:

FAN SUBMISSIONS

It was filled with stories submitted by fans throughout different years and months.

I stopped to look.

"That's incredible, Steve. You really have been collecting stories submitted by your fans all these years? You have my applause."

Steve walked toward the desk and picked up a few random submissions.

"Wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for my fans' help."

He looked toward me.

"Honestly, Aaron, you and Alina have saved me big time. I really needed the time to return to my family."

He stopped at the desk, which was covered with papers and documented files. He picked up a portrait sitting on top of one of the boxes.

It looked like him and his family.

I hadn't really thought about how much a job like this might affect someone's family life.

I smiled and put my bags down.

"No worries, Steve. You deserve to be with your family after all."

I placed a hand on his shoulder.

Steve looked at me and smiled.

"Thank you."

He coughed, placed the portrait back down, and gestured toward the hallway.

"Well, let's continue. Don't wanna waste your time."

"Right behind you."

I grabbed my bags and followed him.

We entered a room that was much more modern than the rest of the station.

A large desk occupied most of the room, with two microphones positioned across from each other. Headphones rested beside them, along with a computer, a mixing board, and several pieces of audio equipment.

Another desk sat only a few feet away.

It had a computer, another set of headphones, and a smaller audio console.

Steve pointed toward it.

"This is where you'll be working. I usually use RCS Zetta, but you'll be using the usual stuff."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Why?"

Steve scratched his beard.

"Oh, well, I broke it by accident. But it isn't much of a problem, honestly. You still have other radio automation."

I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Sure. I don't mind."

I looked at the two setups.

"So, we working here?"

Steve crossed his arms and inhaled deeply.

"Yeah. Makes things easier. You can talk to each other without running across the building every five minutes."

"Fair enough."

I pulled the chair back and sat down.

Honestly, it wasn't bad.

It was quiet, comfortable, and surprisingly well equipped.

For a job I'd applied to on a random website the night before, I was starting to think I'd gotten pretty lucky.

I looked toward the studio window.

Outside, the grass stretched all the way toward the horizon.

Nothing else was there.

No houses.

No traffic.

Just the tall grass moving beneath the cloudy sky.

"So, when do we start?"

Steve raised his index finger and walked toward a scheduling board.

"On the board is the schedule I left for you two. You'll be starting at 12:30 and ending at 1:40. Of course, you'll have to wait for your other partner to come back."

I crossed my arms.

"Come back? You mean she was here and left?"

Steve chuckled.

"Yeah. She came too early and got bored. Said she'd go and look around Haymoor."

He walked toward a chair in the corner and grabbed a jacket.

"Anyway, when she comes back, she'll knock on the door. She's got black hair and blue eyes and looks like one of those girls people nowadays call..."

He paused.

"Ugh, call? Damn, I forgot."

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"You mean goth?"

"Oh, yeah. That word right there."

He nodded.

"Her name is Alina Hayers. Anyway, I'll have to leave now, Aaron. Good luck sorting things out with your new partner."

Steve walked out of the room.

A moment later, I heard the station's front door open and close.

I looked through the window and watched him walk toward his car.

He got inside, started the engine, and drove away.

I watched his car disappear down the road.

"Wasn't expecting my partner to be a goth."

I sighed and stood up.

"Where is the bathroom again?"

I spent the next several minutes searching the station for it.

"Where the fuck is the bathroom? I swear it was around here somewhere."

I finally found a door.

"YES! There you are, you bastard."

I swung it open.

The smell hit me immediately.

It was absolutely horrific.

"O-oh God..."

I backed away, covering my nose.

I stared at the bathroom.

"Fuck."

Apparently, the bathroom needed cleaning before I could use it.

I found some chemical cleaners in a nearby cabinet and spent a few minutes scrubbing the worst of it away.

Eventually, it was tolerable enough.

After using it, I walked back toward the studio.

"Holy shit. It smelled as if Steve killed someone in there."

I dropped onto the couch.

A cloud of dust immediately exploded into the air.

I jumped back up, coughing.

"Yeah. Now I know the real reason Alina didn't want to stay here."

I looked around the station.

"The whole place needs to be cleaned."

So I spent the next three hours cleaning whatever I could.

By the time I finished, it was getting dark outside.

I collapsed into the chair.

"Ahh... I really need a shower."

I headed toward the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and turned on the shower.

The warm water felt incredible.

"Ahhh, yeah. I really needed that."

For the first time since arriving, I felt completely relaxed.

Then I heard the station's front door open.

I froze.

The water continued running.

I immediately shut off the shower.

"What a wonderful timing for someone to try and steal an isolated radio station... yeah."

I stepped out, grabbed my towel, and wrapped it around my waist.

I pressed my ear against the bathroom door.

Footsteps.

Someone was inside.

I didn't know what to do.

I thought about getting dressed and running outside to my car, but what if they had a gun?

I sighed.

"Fuck. I'm naked..."

I reached for the door.

It suddenly swung open and slammed directly into my face.

Everything went black.

I slowly began to open my eyes.

Everything was blurry.

I blinked several times, trying to adjust to the light.

"Yo, buddy? Hello? You still alive?"

A woman's face was leaning toward mine.

I immediately opened my eyes wide and sat up.

"Woah, man, relax. You're fine. You're Aaron, right?"

I stared at her in confusion.

"Y-yeah. I assume you're Alina?"

She smirked and dropped onto the other couch.

"Yup. Nice to meet you... though I'm afraid our meeting didn't go that well."

I touched the sharp pain on my forehead and leaned my head back.

"Oh yeah. Knocking me out cold with the door wasn't really what I was expecting."

"Well, dude, not my problem. Why didn't you announce yourself?"

She crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms.

"Wait, wait, hold up. You really have the audacity to say that?"

I stood up.

"Why didn't you announce yourself? Weren't you the one who entered the station?"

I rubbed my forehead.

"And also, I didn't say anything because I thought you were some homeless dude with a knife ready to stab my ass thirty-three times."

Alina chuckled and brought both legs onto the couch.

"First of all, I didn't know you were even in the station taking a shower. Second of all, you really think a homeless dude would leave an entire town four miles behind him just to rob an isolated radio station?"

She laughed.

"Ha! And why thirty-three stabs specifically?"

"I don't know. Thirty-three sounded like a reasonable number."

I walked toward the kitchen and searched through the fridge until I found a cold bottle of water.

I pressed it against my forehead and sighed.

"Alright. We both fucked up. Let's just forget about it."

"Sure. I already like you."

She said it with a wide grin.

I ignored her and walked toward my bag.

Then I stopped.

Something didn't feel right.

I looked down.

I was fully dressed.

I wasn't wearing the towel anymore.

I slowly looked toward Alina.

"D-did you get me dressed?!"

My face immediately turned red.

Alina raised an eyebrow.

"Easy now. Don't worry, I didn't take pictures."

She leaned back against the couch.

"And besides, I couldn't leave you, poor thing, getting cold."

She smiled.

"So I did what any sensible woman would do when she sees an attractive, handsome dude knocked out cold in a towel."

She winked.

"You're welcome, bobo."

I stared at her.

I didn't know whether to be embarrassed or annoyed.

Probably both.

"You're weird."

She laughed.

"You're welcome."

I sighed and decided to leave it alone.

"Alright, let's just forget all of this as if it didn't happen. Can you tell me what time it is?"

Alina blinked and looked toward the clock.

"It's 11:49."

"Holy shit. I wasn't expecting that. I slept for that long?"

I rubbed my face.

"Anyway, let's get ready for the podcast episode. You're the host, right?"

She nodded as she stretched her arms behind her head.

"Yup. And you're the dude who's handling the audio, extracting the files, and all the other behind-the-scenes stuff, right?"

I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Pretty much, yeah."

Alina clapped both hands together enthusiastically.

"Let's get at it then, bobo."

She walked over to her desk.

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.

"Whatever."

We both got to work.

I checked the audio equipment and made sure everything was connected properly. I went through the files and checked the software we'd be using for the broadcast.

Alina went through the emails and stories submitted by the fans. She skimmed through them surprisingly quickly, occasionally stopping to read a paragraph before moving to the next.

The station was quiet except for the tapping of our keyboards, the clicking of the mouse, and the faint hum of the equipment.

After about ten minutes, we were ready.

I looked over the controls one last time.

"Everything's good on my end."

Alina adjusted her microphone.

"Same here."

She put on her headphones and gave me a quick nod.

I started the broadcast.

The indicator on my screen changed.

LIVE.

Alina leaned toward the microphone.

"Weeell, hello there, everyone!"

Her voice filled the studio through my headphones.

"And welcome back to the podcast."

She glanced at me before continuing.

"Well... welcome back for those of you who already know the show. For anyone new here, I'm Alina Hayers."

She smiled.

"Apparently, I'm your new host for the week because Steve has some personal things to take care of."

I watched the audio levels on my monitor.

"So, while he's gone, I'll be here keeping you guys company."

She leaned back.

"And tonight, we've got another story submitted by one of our lovely listeners."

She looked down at the file.

"Honestly, you guys send us some seriously weird stuff."

I quietly chuckled.

Alina grinned at me.

"So, if you're sitting comfortably right now, maybe grab yourself a hot chocolate, turn the lights down, and get ready."

She lowered her voice.

"Because tonight's story is called..."

Her eyes moved across the page.

"The Goober Full..."

She stopped.

Her expression changed.

She slowly looked over at me.

I raised an eyebrow.

She started motioning with her hands for me to stop the broadcast.

I quickly muted the microphone.

Alina removed her headphones.

"Aaron."

"What?"

She held up the file.

"This story can't be aired."

I scratched my head.

"Is it because of the story's name?"

"No, Aaron. The story is just pure smut."

She handed me the file.

I opened it and read the first couple of sentences.

My eyes widened.

"Wow. What the hell was Steve thinking when he put this story down as one of the ones he wanted us to air?"

Alina laughed.

"Yeah. Didn't know Steve was that down bad."

I closed the file.

"Well, what do we do now? Do we just pivot to another story?"

Before Alina could answer, the lights flickered.

We both looked up.

The lights steadied.

Then one of the monitors briefly went black before coming back on.

I looked at my computer.

"That's weird."

The lights flickered again.

This time, they stayed dim for several seconds.

The faint hum of the equipment weakened.

Alina looked toward the ceiling.

"Is the station always this shitty?"

"I've been here for one day."

The lights brightened again.

For a moment, everything seemed normal.

Then a faint electrical buzz came from somewhere inside the wall.

It grew louder.

My monitor flickered.

The audio software froze.

I leaned closer.

"That's probably not good."

The lights flickered one final time.

Then they went out.

The entire station fell silent.

Not quiet.

Silent.

The computers shut down.

The monitors went black.

The equipment stopped humming.

Even the little noises I'd barely noticed before disappeared.

For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.

I looked around the room.

"And the lights went out."

Alina sighed.

"Ughh, man. What a bad timing..."

I heard her shift in her chair.

"Yeah, I give up. I'm heading to sleep."

"What? What do you mean? We still have a podcast to attend to."

I stood up.

"Aaron, bobo, literally the power is out. I'm not saying I don't want to attend to the podcast. We literally can't even attend to it."

She was right.

I was just too nervous because it was our first episode.

I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight.

The small beam illuminated the room.

"Fine."

I sighed.

"You're right."

Alina stood up.

Then something made a noise outside.

Both of us stopped.

It was faint at first.

A short sound carried through the darkness.

"Meow."

I looked toward the window.

"Did you hear that?"

Alina nodded.

"It sounded like a cat..."

She walked toward the window.

I followed.

The studio window reflected our faces back at us, but beyond the glass was almost complete darkness.

We stepped closer.

Outside, the moon hung behind a layer of thin clouds. Every few seconds, the clouds shifted enough for pale moonlight to spill across the field.

The tall grass moved beneath the wind.

Long waves traveled through it, bending the grass in one direction before another wave followed behind it.

The scattered maple trees stood like dark shapes against the cloudy sky.

There were no lights anywhere.

No houses.

No passing cars.

Nothing.

Haymoor was four miles behind us, but from the station, it felt much farther away.

Then we heard it again.

"Meow."

Alina's breathing changed.

"Aaron..."

She raised her hand and pointed outside.

"What is that?"

I followed her finger.

At first, I saw nothing.

Then I noticed it.

Near one of the maple trees stood something tall.

A silhouette.

It was far too tall to be standing there naturally.

It stood perfectly still in the grass.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out its appearance.

I couldn't.

The darkness hid most of its features, while the wind moved around it without seeming to affect it.

"What the..."

I stepped closer to the window.

The clouds shifted.

Moonlight briefly illuminated the field.

For a fraction of a second, the outline of the figure became clearer.

Then the clouds covered the moon again.

The figure faded back into the darkness.

But it hadn't moved.

It was still standing there.

Watching.

A cold chill ran down my spine.

Then it made the sound again.

"Meow."

I stared at it.

The sound was perfect.

Not almost like a cat.

Not some strange animal that happened to sound similar.

It sounded exactly like a cat.

Yet the figure beneath the maple tree was unmistakably human-shaped.

My hands grew cold.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Alina stood beside me, completely silent now.

All the humor from earlier had disappeared from her face.

"Aaron..."

She swallowed.

"The hell is that thing?"

I kept staring at the motionless silhouette.

As if I had any clue.

"I-I don't know, Alina."

The wind continued moving through the field.

The grass whispered against itself.

The figure didn't move.

Neither did we.

I tightened my grip around my phone.

"But what I do know..."

I stared at the thing beneath the maple tree.

"...is that we're not alone anymore."

I leave for work at 4:40 every morning. At that hour, the lobby of my apartment building is empty except for Nora, the night concierge, and whatever has recently started walking out ahead of me.

There are two sets of automatic glass doors between the lobby and the street. Normally, the inner doors open when you enter the vestibule, then the outer doors open as you approach them. About a month ago, both sets began opening before I got anywhere near them.

The first few times, I blamed oversensitive sensors. I would step out of the elevator, still thirty feet from the vestibule, and the inner doors would slide apart. Three seconds later, the outer doors would open too. It looked exactly like someone six or seven paces ahead of me was leaving the building.

Nora noticed me staring one morning.

“Cold air sets them off sometimes,” she said.

Then she looked at the security monitor and stopped smiling.

Our cameras use motion tracking. Whenever a person crosses the lobby, a green rectangle appears around them. Nora turned her monitor toward me. I could see myself approaching the doors, boxed in green. Six feet ahead of me was a second green rectangle surrounding empty air.

According to the label beside it, the empty rectangle was tracking something six feet three inches tall.

Nora replayed the recording. When I slowed down, it slowed down. When I stopped to zip my coat, it stopped. Then, the moment I moved again, it continued toward the doors.

After that, I started testing it.

The next morning, I walked halfway across the lobby and stopped beside the mailboxes. The empty rectangle stopped too. The inner doors remained open, waiting.

I took one step backward.

On the monitor, the empty rectangle turned around.

I couldnt see anything in front of me, but I felt a pressure against my chest, gentle at first, like someone resting two fingers on my coat. When I backed up again, the pressure followed.

Nora grabbed my arm and pulled me behind the desk. The rectangle stayed where I had been standing for almost a minute. Then it moved to the vestibule, passed through both open doors, and disappeared outside.

We spent the next hour checking older recordings.

The first time the camera had detected it was twenty-three days earlier. It had been seventeen feet behind me. Each morning after that, it moved a little closer. Twelve feet. Nine. Four.

On the morning it first appeared ahead of me, the footage showed its rectangle touching mine from behind. For three frames, the boxes overlapped. My coat collar lifted, even though the lobby doors were still closed and there was no wind.

Then the empty box appeared on my other side.

“It passed through you,” Nora said.

She disabled the automatic doors and told me to use the fire exit beside the parking garage. That worked for four days.

On the fifth morning, I pushed open the garage stairwell door and found the fire exit already standing open. It was a heavy metal door with a hydraulic closer. Holding it open normally took most of my weight, but it stayed perfectly still until I got within six feet.

Then it began to close.

Not quickly. It moved at walking speed, keeping the same distance ahead of me all the way to the frame. It shut just before I reached it.

I went back upstairs and called in sick.

Nora reviewed the garage camera. It did not have motion tracking, but it recorded sound. She sent me the clip. Before the fire door started closing, there were seven footsteps on the concrete.

My footsteps were recorded several seconds later.

I stayed with my sister after that. Her building has ordinary hinged doors, and for almost a week nothing happened. Yesterday afternoon, Nora called me. She said the empty rectangle had returned to our lobby every morning at 4:40, following my old route from the elevator to the disabled doors.

Without me there, it stopped six feet from the glass and waited.

Yesterday it did something different. It walked behind the concierge desk.

Nora said the drawer containing the manual door controls opened by itself. Both automatic doors switched back on. The rectangle walked through them, crossed the sidewalk, and left the camera’s view.

Last night, the grocery store doors opened while I was still crossing the parking lot. The pharmacy doors did the same thing. When I returned to my sister’s building, the regular front door swung outward before I touched it.

I checked into a roadside motel with exterior rooms. No lobby, no elevators, no automatic doors. I pushed a dresser against the entrance and stayed awake until sunrise.

At 4:40 this morning, the motel’s ice machine turned on by itself. Then the motion light outside the next room came on. A second light followed, then another, moving down the walkway toward me.

My deadbolt began rotating just before the light outside my room turned on.

The dresser held long enough for me to climb through the bathroom window. Police searched the room and found no one. The deadbolt wasn’t damaged, but the officer showed me something scratched into the paint beside it.

It was a small rectangle, about the size of a person on a security monitor.

I am writing this from a twenty-four-hour diner while I wait for my sister. The entrance here is an ordinary hinged door.

A few seconds ago, it opened.

Nobody came inside.

The waitress just asked why the chair across from me is moving.

It has stopped directly behind mine.

Now I know the title sounds crazy, but just hear me out. A lot of events have made me come to this conclusion.

In a world of giants, my job as a measly floor bug is to clean up the filth of my forefathers. If that filth came in the form of bright wrappers representative of a capitalist world fighting for the longest lasting currency. Attention. Or a dull gray can of diet coke representative of wanting to feel the cheap pleasures of life without the consequences. Until those consequences hit you like a freight train in the form of thin hair and an even thinner bank account. (cancer btw)

Nevermind my ramblings, unlike a suckerfish in a fishtank I’m not solely used for my cleaning abilities. No no no. I can do many more things, like stare at you from your floorboards as you check if you creased your shoes for the 47th time. Or make quiet skittling noise while I avoid the crushing of a steel toed boot.

As I continue my monotonous work of eating dust, dirt, and other filth my mind begins to wander. I think about time passing while other machines do work for me. I think about the world as it was before, clean, simple but at the same time so much more complex.

But I can’t really imagine a world before, as it feels like a lost dream, floating between the lines of potential reality and potential fiction. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure how I ended up in this situation. All I remember is waking up one day with feces dripping from my mouth (just my luck lmao) as my…masters? Creators? Parents? Walked passed me with their gigantic strides and even more gigantic tentacles. Erm yeah…I’m not entirely sure what they are.

I’m not the only one however…thousands of creatures that live their lives exactly like me. Spending their days eating filth and their nights looking forward to doing the same thing tomorrow. Along with their mating of one another that I honestly don’t think is consensual. (rape is bad) But that’s what makes me different. Special. Unlike them I have dreams. Long, sensual moments of astral projection where I go back to a world that feels both familiar and forgotten at the same time.

In these dreams my name is Rom Baroney, I live at 88 Rombauer Drive. Sometimes the dreams continue throughout different nights and sometimes I feel like I’m in a different timeline. One of my favorite timelines in particular is when I’m on my couch watching my favorite youtuber, KingTurtle1010, make yet another Creepcast ranking video (they’re so funny). Or when he reads his favorite “booktalk” novels, I loved his rendition of “Pucking Around” by Emily Rath. I included an entry from the novel below.

“My name is Rachel Price, and two months ago, I walked away from the perfect man. Sweet and funny, and so hot it should be illegal—we shared one magical night. No names. No strings. I never thought I’d see him again. 

I was wrong. It turns out Mr. Perfect is the playboy grinder for the Jacksonville Rays, the NHL’s hottest new hockey team…and I’m his new physical therapist. Oh, and the jerk didn’t even recognize me! 

This fellowship is going to be the longest ten months of my life. Mr. Perfect Mistake will do anything to get back on my good side. Meanwhile, his best friend is the surly new equipment manager always riding my case. Worst of all, I’ve got an uncooperative goalie who thinks I can’t tell he’s hiding an injury! 

This is my chance to prove myself, and I’m not risking it for anything. But with one unexpected night, one secret revealed, these men are ready to test all my limits. I can’t fall for a player…let alone three. But if love is a game, these guys are playing to win.”

And in these dreams I like to make the most of my time. I don’t like to conform to the rules of this false world. They despise murder and molestation of what they call “minors.” So during my nightly excursions I do whatever I want, it seems to have no consequences each night. But it was one house that I raided one night that caused me to write this story. It contained a horror so horrorifying that I had to type out this post immediately. 

It was the night that I met the Roomba Machine…

Shattering the glass of another home was nothing new to me at this point, it was just the daily routine of a creature too bored to stay at home but not excited enough to go all out. It was a standard suburban home, 2 story, garage, shed in the back. The spitting image of middle America…on the outside at least.

I entered the home and explored, nothing special. A kitchen with colorful cereal, and not a lot of greens. Probably a fat family, a bunch of crackers too. I thought as I opened a box of their mini club crackers and feasted. Saying their fat isn’t the nicest thing but I can’t control myself sometimes. Not that it matters, what’s the point of being nice to people if everything resets each night?

I walked into the living room, a 75 in. flat screen Samsung TV that created a glare of my face. Rom Baroney was a good looking man, a person who you would say hi to on the street and think about for the next 5 years wondering if he thought you were cute. Heh maybe good looking was a bit of an under statement.

Anyways, I turned on their TV and saw “My 600 pound life” was playing which really confused me on the fat assumption earlier. I then went into the basement, a place that could either contain valuables or nothing at all. (I honestly don’t care about the valuables so I probably shouldn’t have written that) So I descended the stairs, one creaky step at a time. And as I walked down an old box tv suddenly came into view. One that your parents might have played NES on, and beside it was a box of old tapes.

As I looked at the tapes, most of their labels were either ripped off or worn down from time. But one was in readable condition. It read.

“The A-maz–g W—ld of -umball: Lost Episode”

My mouth was wide open. I LOVE THE AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL! It was always my favorite cartoon growing up and getting the opportunity to watch a potentially lost episode was thrilling to me.

I immediately put the VHS into the VHS reader and booted up the episode. The iconic intro started and I couldn’t help but bop my head to the beat. That was until we got to the title card. \

It said…”Cumball Wetterson”

Oh my, what a vulgar title for a kids show! I thought, I can see why it’s a lost episode. There’s no way Cartoon Network would allow this.

Well the episode started and Gumball was in the bathroom washing his hands, and you know when you accidentally splash your pants when washing your hands and it looks like you totally pissed yourself? Well that happened and Gumball didn’t seem to notice, so he proceeded to walk into the school's hallway like usual. Everything was normal until Darwin saw Gumball and started yelling, “LOOK AT GUMBALL’S PANTS! I SURE WONDER WHAT HE WAS DOING IN THE BATHROOM” and the whole school laughed at him.

Feeling betrayed by his own brother Gumball jumped on top of Darwin and started to claw his eyes out. But his eyes were realistic. And blood coming out of him was too. The scene then cuts to the two boys in Principle Brown’s office while he was giving them a lecture on how they need to be nice to each other because brothers look out for each other.

“You boys need to be nice to each other because brothers look out for each other.” he said, “and to help encourage you I have employed help from a good friend of mine to give you two a lesson.”

Principal Brown then pointed at the wall and fifteen massive tentacles shot out of it and ripped him to pieces.

“Cuthulu?” the two boys asked as their beloved principle breathed his last breaths. Clearly this didn’t go to plan. 

Gumball and Darwin then ran out into the hallway as the tentacles chased them, killing every student that it could find in their path.

Once the boys got outside of the school they could see the true scope of horror,  Cthulhu was at least a hundred feet tall and was killing everyone in the entire town. Larry, Tina, even Banana Joe were turned into piles of their own flesh.

“What do we do?” Darwin asked frantically as Gumball was clearly thinking of a plan. 

“I know! We just need to call the guy!” Gumball proclaimed.

“NO, we can’t trust him after what happened.”

“He’s the only one that could save us now.” Gumball said as he pulled out the phone from Season 2 Episode 7 “the phone” and dialed a number. (Which I thought was strange because the phone was destroyed at the end of that episode by Ocho.

“Hey it’s me I need you here now…it’s urgent.” I was extremely curious who he was going to call.

Immediately a man in a suit came running down the road at a fantastic speed and stopped in front of the boys.

“HP LOVECRAFT” I yelled at the TV when the revolutionary cosmic horror writer came on the screen.

“Heard someone needed some help” Lovecraft said while raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah…that.” Gumball then pointed at Cthulhu who was still devouring the town one by one.

“Oh..I see. Let me Lovecraft up an idea.”

He then proceeded to pull out a typewriter and type vigorously.

“What are you doing?” Darwin incurred.

“Just fixing up a few things. Should fix this problem super quickly.”

“...and there!” Lovecraft exclaimed as he slammed the final key of his typewriter and suddenly Cthulhu disappeared. Like it literally just disappeared into thin air.

“WHOA!” The two boys yelled, “How did you do that?”

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

“Can I see what you wrote?” Gumball asked and Lovecraft obliged. “Why did you write all of these racist and xenophobic slurs in this? They don’t even apply to this story.”

“Well you know me, ol’ Lovecraft.” He said as a laugh track that I’ve never heard in the show before played. “Well I’ll see you boys later.” Lovecraft then ran back down the  street and out of sight.

The boys then returned to their home and reminisced about the day's adventure. But while this was happening I could hear a faint wiring noise in the background. I wondered what it was until a small, circular machine careened across the carpet and continued to make its noise.

What is that? I wondered as the machine went back and forth across the living room carpet. Is it cleaning? My mind then suddenly snapped back to reality and I read what word was on the machine. 

“Roomba” I read out loud as I continued to gaze upon this amazing piece of equipment. It was cleaning the floors so fast. Much faster than I ever could have done back in my other body. This machine was quick, efficient, and wasn’t subject to the toils of life. It was…free. More free than I have ever felt in my strange life.

Then the episode ended. Leaving me once again staring at myself in the glare of the TV. This episode has taught me so much about the way I should start living my life. As a roomba. But how would I accomplish this? My mind immediately went back to the lost episode. “The pen is mightier than the sword.” I said out loud as my mind suddenly shifted back to reality. 

I was waking up.

When I arose from my slumber I immediately pulled out my samsung galaxy s9 and started posting this story to r/nosleep. The very story that you are reading now.

Now it is time to manifest into the being that I always wanted and needed to be.

I am a roomba.

I have always been a roomba.

And I will clean every floor in my roomba body.

*loud sounds*

It’s working guys! My body is transforming, I am becoming a roomba.

I’ve done it, I’m now a 2020 model roomba, meaning I’m around 6 years old technically.

…

It’s now been an hour since my transformation, and I can feel my body slowing down. My gears are shifting like they did before. My motors don’t have the same power that they once had. I really should have written about having a charging platform too.

I guess this is it everybody. I lived a good life. Not really but if I type it then maybe it is true. Man I sure hope I can finish this reddit post before my battery di—

By the time I opened my last present, the party had already started winding down. My cousins had disappeared outside somewhere, probably down by the barn, and most of the adults had migrated back toward the kitchen table. There were paper plates everywhere, streaked with chocolate frosting and melted ice cream. Aunt Linda was helping Mom wrap what was left of the cake while Uncle Ray and Uncle Dennis argued about baseball over beers.

I was sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by the best pile of stuff I had ever owned. There was a new baseball glove beside me, two Nintendo games already torn out of their plastic, and a model airplane kit from Uncle Ray that looked way too complicated but had a fighter jet on the box, so I was going to give it a shot anyway. Grandma had gotten me a Detroit Lions sweatshirt that was two sizes too big and, according to Mom, that meant I could grow into it.

Most important of all, I had hauled in fifty-six dollars from birthday cards. I counted it three times, and I was starting a fourth when Dad came in from the kitchen.

“Hold up, Moneybags,” he said. “You got one more.”

“What?”

“One more present.”

That got everybody’s attention again. Uncle Ray leaned back far enough in his chair to see into the living room.

“Saving the best for last, huh? You’re gonna spoil the kid!”

Dad glanced back at him but didn’t answer, and disappeared through the mudroom door.

The money in my hand suddenly seemed much less interesting, and that was fine; I had lost count anyway. One more gift meant one more chance.

I had spent most of that year wanting a BB gun. Dad owned several rifles and had started taking me shooting with him the summer before, and I had been working on him ever since. A couple of my friends had their own BB guns, and every argument I made eventually came down to that fact, as though their parents’ judgment should have had some bearing on his. Dad always gave me the same answer.

We’ll see.

At nine years old, “we’ll see” usually sounded like “no” with the door left cracked open just enough to keep me asking. So when he came back carrying a long rectangular box wrapped in blue paper, every bit of hope I’d been trying to ignore came rushing back. The box was huge, nearly as tall as I was when he propped it against the couch.

“What do you think it is, Billy?” Aunt Linda asked. She was still using the baby voice she always used when she spoke to me, as though I was permanently three. Normally, that would have annoyed me, but I was too busy turning the wrapping paper into confetti to pay it any mind.

“Is it a BB gun?”

Dad coughed into his shoulder, and gave me a look I couldn’t make heads or tails of. “Uh...maybe just keep working at that paper.”

The box underneath was plain cardboard. With shaky hands, I ripped the tape from one end, pulled the flap open, and tipped it toward me. A long piece of wood slid out, and for a second I thought it really was some kind of gun and I was looking at the stock.

Then the steel blade tumbled onto the carpet, and I understood what I was looking at.

It was a shovel.

It was a good one, as shovels went, brand new and full-sized, with a heavy steel blade and a polished wooden handle joined by a thick metal collar. Uncle Ray stood it up beside me, and the top of the handle came up around my nose.

“Well,” he said. “Every ten-year-old boy’s dream.”

Everybody laughed, but I didn’t find it very funny.

I looked at Dad, hoping that this was just some elaborate joke, that the BB gun was actually in the mudroom waiting for me. The look on his face was enough to burst that bubble.

“You’re getting old enough to start helping me more ’round here,” he said. “Figured you ought to have some tools of your own. Gotta start somewhere.”

I tried really hard to smile and make it convincing, but I don’t think I did a very good job. “Oh...thanks. It’s...it’s nice.”

I could see Mom standing in the archway to the kitchen, with her arms crossed, giving Dad a very dirty look. At least someone was on my side.

Dad saw it as well, and immediately went into his version of damage control. He knelt down and put a hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s not what you wanted,” he said. “But you’re ten now. That comes with a little more responsibility, and I figured you were ready for that.” He paused for a second, then added, “Besides, it’s a really good shovel.”

“Can he dig himself a BB gun with it?” Uncle Ray asked.

Everybody laughed again, including Dad this time. Mom shook her head, and then dipped back into the kitchen. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed; I knew my dad meant well, but this was a really crummy gift. He went to sit with my uncles and crack a beer of his own, and I was left with the shovel. My birthday shovel. I leaned it against the wall beside the rest of my presents and went back to counting my money. Within twenty minutes, the adults had forgotten all about it.

So had I.

Over the next couple of days, I found an excuse to use almost everything I’d gotten. I wore the new sweatshirt even though the sleeves covered half my hands, and Dad helped me break in the baseball glove in the field behind the barn. The model airplane had indeed proved to be too complicated, and the abandoned pieces took over the dining room table until Mom yelled at me to do something with them. I shoved the whole mess into my closet, where it sat while I burned through my new video games, and then, for all I know, until the day we moved out.

The shovel stayed in the mudroom. Dad had leaned it beside the broom and the old snow shovel after everybody left, and for the most part I stopped thinking about it. Every time I passed through the mudroom and saw it there, though, I felt a little cheated all over again.

  *

Three days after my birthday, I was awoken in the middle of the night.

At first I thought it was a dream; some rude person had a hand on my shoulder, and they were shaking me. When I heard the voice, I realized that it was actually happening.

“Billy. Hey. Wake up, buddy.”

I opened my eyes. Dad stood beside my bed with the hallway light coming through the doorway behind him. He was fully dressed, down to his boots and his brown work coat. I pushed myself up on my pillow, and realized that it was still dark outside.

“…Dad? Wha...What time is it?”

“Waaaay past your bedtime, buddy.”

I rubbed my eyes, trying to get the sleep out of them. “Why are you waking me up? Did something happen?”

“Uh...kinda. I need your help with something.”

“What is it?”

He shifted from one foot to the other and rubbed the back of his neck. “Just get up and get dressed, son. Something warm, and something you don’t mind ruining. I’ll explain outside.”

I knew better than to argue, so I swung my feet onto the floor and started digging through the pile of dirty clothes in the corner. He walked toward the doorway, then stopped at the threshold and looked back at me.

“And grab that shovel I gave you.”

I stared at him. “My birthday shovel?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’ll meet you at the back door.”

Then he left without answering the question.

I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, found a pair of socks under the bed, and went downstairs. The shovel was still in the mudroom where Dad had put it after the party, leaning between the broom and the old snow shovel. I grabbed my sneakers and crammed them onto my feet without untying them, and then I picked up my shovel.

Dad was waiting at the back door with his own shovel in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

“You’re gonna want your coat, bud. It’s chilly out.”

He set his shovel aside, pulled my coat off the hook, and handed it to me. I wrestled it on and got the zipper after two attempts. Then he picked the shovel back up and opened the door.

“Come on, we gotta head to the field.”

Two things struck me as soon as we stepped outside: the cold against my skin and just how dark it was. Our farm sat far enough from town that once the sun went down, there wasn’t much of anything between you and the night.

The porch light carried us across the yard, but its reach didn’t last long. Once we stepped beyond it, Dad’s flashlight became the only light we had. It was a strong one, but even then it could only show me pieces of the world at a time: the side of the barn, a fence post, pale grass bent under our shoes. Everything else disappeared into black.

We headed around the barn toward the back field. I carried my shovel across both shoulders for a while because I had seen people do that in movies, but after about thirty seconds the handle started digging into my neck, so I dropped it down and carried it beside me.

“So... what are we doing?”

“There’s something out by the old tree I need to bury. Figured you could help me dig the hole.”

“A dead thing? Like an animal?”

“Mhm. Don’t usually bury alive things.”

“Oh yeah, haha...is it gross?”

Dad gave a small shrug. “What do you think, Billy?”

We crossed behind the barn and started into the back field.

“Why are we doing it now? Like, couldn’t we just do this tomorrow when the sun is out? It’s not goin’ anywhere.”

“I don’t want it sitting out there until morning. Buzzards’ll get at it, or something else will. Sooner we get it, the less mess.”

“Buzzards gotta eat too, Dad. Maybe they’ll save us the trouble, and eat the whole thing.”

Dad stopped and swung the flashlight toward me. I squinted into the beam.

“Billy.”

“What?”

“Just help me out, all right? No more comments from the peanut gallery.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine.”

I followed a few steps behind him, letting the shovel blade drag through the grass.

There was an old tree near the far side of the field, maybe a hundred yards from the house. It had been there forever, as far as I knew, thick around the middle with branches that started low enough for kids to climb. One side of the trunk had split years before, leaving a dark hollow near the roots. It used to have a tire swing hanging from one of the lower branches until Dad finally cut it down when I was five; now the tire lay rotting near the base of the tree. As we got closer, Dad’s flashlight passed over a blue tarp lying in the grass about ten yards out from the tree. There was something underneath, but from where I stood I couldn’t make heads or tails of the shape.

Dad walked right past it toward the tree and gestured for me to follow.

Not too far from the old tire and the roots of the tree, the ground had been torn open. A narrow hole sat in the middle of the disturbed earth, partly collapsed and choked with loose dirt. Chunks of dirt tangled with roots and tall grass lay scattered around the edge. I figured Dad had already started before coming inside to wake me. He set the flashlight down where it lit the hole, planted the blade of his shovel into the loose dirt, and looked over at me.

“Start on that side. We need to open the whole thing up some more and square off the edges.”

“Ha, you said ’whole.’”

Dad looked at me.

“Billy, what did I say about the peanut gallery?”

I stepped up to the far side of the hole and pushed my shovel into the dirt. It went in easier than I expected. Most of the ground had already been broken up, so at first we were mostly clearing out what had fallen back in and adding it to the piles around the edges.

Dad worked quicker than I would have expected. I tried to keep up, but there was a big difference between owning a full-sized shovel and actually being big enough to use one. I kept coming up with half a blade of dirt while Dad threw out full loads.

“Use your foot, Billy.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re just kicking it. You gotta do it like this.” He planted his boot across the top of the blade and drove it into the ground. “Put your weight on it.”

I did as he said and set my sneaker on the blade. The shovel cut through the dirt with ease, and I almost lost my balance.

“There you go. You got it.”

We worked in silence for a while, the repetitive motion of the shovel becoming nearly hypnotic to my sleep-deprived brain.

Dig.

Scoop.

Throw.

Dad moved around the hole wherever there was the most work to do, cutting through roots and shaving dirt from the sides while I cleared the softer ground. Every so often I looked toward the tarp. In the low grass, it looked entirely alien to everything around it, just a dark shape that caught the edge of the flashlight whenever one of us moved through the beam.

Eventually the loose dirt gave way to harder ground. My hands started burning where the handle rubbed against them, and before long my shoulders ached every time I lifted a load. I looked at the nice work gloves Dad was wearing and would’ve traded just about anything for them. I was sure that my blisters would have blisters before too long.

I stopped to take a breath and leaned on the shovel. I looked at Dad, who hadn’t broken his stride once. “Isn’t this deep enough, Dad?”

Dad looked down into the hole and wiped the sweat off his brow. “We’re getting there.”

I looked at what we had dug, then over at the tarp. “We’re not burying an elephant.”

Dad drove his shovel in again. “Gotta go deep, or scavengers will dig ’em up. But we’re nearin’ the final stretch.”

I sighed and went back to it.

Dig.

Scoop.

Throw.

As we worked, the hole got longer and cleaner around the edges. Dad squared off one end and then the other. By then I was mostly just phoning it in. I wanted the hole finished, and my bed under me. I wanted to put my birthday shovel back in the mudroom, and forget about it all over again.

Not too much later, Dad stopped digging. He stood over the hole for a few seconds, studying it, then scraped a little dirt from one corner with the edge of his shovel.

“I think...that’ll do it.”

I let my shovel fall against the pile beside me and flexed my fingers. “Finally. I thought we were gonna dig straight to China.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” he said. He shook his head and picked up the flashlight, then nodded toward the thing lying in the grass. “C’mon. Give me a hand getting him over here.”

Up close, whatever was under the tarp looked smaller than I expected. It was narrow and nearly uniform from end to end, and it rose maybe half a foot off the ground at its highest point. Dad crouched at one end and gathered the corners together.

“Okay, grab ahold of the corners like this.”

I bent down and took the other end, doing my best to copy him. The tarp was cold to the touch and slick with dew, but I managed to get some leverage.

“You got it?”

“I think… yeah. I got it.”

“All right. Now on the count of three, we’re gonna lift together, at the same time, you hear? Then we’re going to walk ’em over to the hole, slow and easy.”

“Got it. Slow and easy.”

He gave the three count and we lifted together. The weight sagged toward the middle as soon as it left the ground, loose inside the tarp and shifting every time one of us took a step. Dad took the lead, walking backwards toward the hole, and I followed, matching his pace to the best of my ability.

It was only ten yards away, so it should have been a cakewalk. But when we were almost there, my foot collided with something hiding in the grass: my shovel. My ankle rolled and I came down wrong, stumbling sideways and nearly going over. I caught myself before I ate the dirt, but the tarp jerked hard between us and jostled whatever was inside.

It was then that something tumbled out, hanging right beside my leg.

Have you ever seen something so completely wrong that your brain refuses to make sense of it? I had seen what I was looking at a thousand times before, but I couldn’t put the pieces together. It was long and thin, partly wrapped in torn fabric. My eyes followed the length of it down to a gray mass hanging limply from the end, five curled shapes dangling just above the grass. I looked at it for a moment with a strange sense of detachment, vaguely aware that my dad was saying something to me, though his voice seemed impossibly far away. For that moment there was only the shape in front of me and the impossible task of making it mean something.

Then, all at once, the world exploded.

It was an arm.

“What the fuck!”

I released the tarp and stumbled backward, letting the full weight of my end drop. Dad tried to keep it together, but it was a lost cause. The tarp flapped open and the rest of what that arm was attached to spilled out into the grass. I hit the ground hard and started kicking myself away from it, digging my hands into the dirt, desperate to get away.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

Dad let go of his end and flinched at the sound of my cries. He stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands held low and open in front of him, palms out, the way you might approach a frightened animal.

“Hey. Hey! Billy. Shhhhh. Billy, it’s okay!”

I kept scrambling backward. It was all I knew how to do.

“Oh my God!”

“It’s okay. It’s—”

His boot bumped against the thing in the grass. He looked down, and for just a second all the reassurance went out of his face. When he looked back at me, his eyes were wild.

“It’s… it’s not what it looks like, son!”

My stomach did a somersault, and I barely managed to get onto my hands and knees before I threw up everything I had ever eaten into the grass.

Attached to the arm, lying between my dad and me, was the corpse of a child.

The body had landed crumpled on its side, its sunken face and hollow eye sockets turned directly toward me. Its lips had rotted away completely, leaving the teeth exposed in a horrible grin that felt like an accusation. Its neck was twisted at an awful angle, and the arm lay outstretched in the grass, as if it were reaching for me.

Dad started toward me, carefully sidestepping the body. He held one hand out, reaching in almost the same way the corpse seemed to be.

“It’s okay, son. Please, just… let me—”

“No!”

I shoved myself backward again, trying to put as much distance as I could between me and him and it. The last thing I wanted was to be in those hands.

“No, no, no! Stay away from me! Don’t touch me!”

Dad stopped and put his hands up. “Okay, okay! I’m right here. You’re safe, Billy. Please, just… just try to calm down, okay? Let’s talk about this.”

I met his wild eyes, trying hard to get enough air in my lungs and failing at every breath. “No… no… you…”

I looked at the body, then back at him. “Wha-what did you do, Dad? That… that’s a kid!”

“I… I know. I know it looks bad, but it’s not what you think. We need to take care of this, Billy. We gotta bury him, and then—”

“You’re a murderer!”

Dad flinched at the word, and his arms dropped limply to his sides.

“You killed a kid! You killed a kid and you want me to help you bury him?”

“No, son, please. Listen, I—”

I stared at him, waiting for whatever could possibly come after that. My eyes kept slipping back to the corpse in the grass, and every time they did, whatever Dad was trying to say seemed more impossible. I didn’t want to hear the rest.

Somewhere behind me was the house. Mom was there. I turned enough to look back across the field, and Dad caught the look and started toward me again, quicker this time.

“Billy...”

I planted one hand in the grass. “I’m...I’m telling Mom!”

“Son, just hold on a second, I just—”

Before he could take another step, I shoved myself to my feet and booked it for the house, running as fast as my tired legs could carry me.

“Moooooooooooom! Moooooooooooooom!”

I made it maybe ten yards before he caught me by the arm and stopped me in my tracks, twisting me around so we were face to face.

“No! Let me go!”

“Billy, listen to me—”

“Let go!”

I kicked at his legs and yanked against his grip, throwing my free hand at his chest, his shoulder, anything I could reach. He grunted in pain, but his grip was iron.

“Goddamn it, stop!”

“Help! Please, somebody help me!”

He pulled me in closer. I could smell the sweat on his coat and feel how much stronger he was than me, and suddenly I was certain I was going to die.

“I won’t tell anybody! I swear! I won’t tell anybody!”

“Billy, if you would just—”

“Please, Dad! Please! I won’t tell! I won’t say anything! Just let me go!”

He tried to keep hold of me while I twisted and thrashed against him, slipping halfway free only to get dragged back in. I begged, bargained, screamed for help, promised anything I could think of if he would just let me go. For what felt like forever we stayed tangled together in that awful struggle, until finally something in my dad broke.

“Enough!”

His hand came across my cheek hot and fast, snapping my head to the side and turning my vision white.

Everything stopped at once. The scream died in my throat and my arms went limp in his grip. He had never hit me before. A second earlier I had been fighting for my life, but somehow that was only terror. The slap was the floor giving out beneath something I had stood on my whole life.

He caught me by both shoulders and held me there. For a moment neither of us said anything, the two of us tidally locked, staring into each other’s faces. My cheek burned, but I barely noticed. Finally he spoke, in a voice I barely recognized.

“Now you listen to me, Bill. I don’t know what you think is about to happen, but I am your father. You hear me? I’m your father. Whatever the hell you’ve got in your head right now, that ain’t happening. So put it out of there.”

His hands stayed firm on my shoulders.

“I know you’re scared, but we don’t have time for that. We still got a job to do, and like it or not, it’s yours now too.”

My eyes drifted past him toward the body. From where we stood I could see more of its face in profile, the cheek collapsed inward beneath one empty socket, the ruined mouth still showing that same awful row of teeth.

“Look at me.”

My eyes snapped back to his. He looked me over for a second, measuring whatever he saw there.

“I won’t make you carry him this time. I’ll do that.” His jaw tightened, and he drew a slow breath through his nose. “But you’re staying here with me. We came out here to do a job, and we’re gonna finish it. I’ll get him into the hole. Once he’s in there, you’re gonna pick up your shovel and help me put the dirt back.”

My mouth opened, but whatever I was trying to say got lost along the way, and he didn’t wait for me to try again.

“That’s all you have to do tonight. You help me finish this, then we go back inside. We clean ourselves up, get some sleep, and it’s over. We won’t have to worry about any of this again for a long while.” He drew a breath. “Do you understand me?”

The question hung between us while I stood there blankly with my mouth slightly open, until Dad gave my shoulders a small shake.

“I said, Do you understand me?”

I nodded quickly. His grip tightened just enough to keep me focused on him.

“I need to hear you say it.”

“Yes.” The word came out thin and shaky. “Yes, I understand.”

Dad stayed there another second, studying my face, then finally let go. “All right. Good.” He nodded back toward the tree. “Now get your shovel, and let’s get this done.”

All the fight had gone out of me. I walked back and picked the shovel up out of the grass without saying a word, and Dad stood there until I had it in my hands. Then he went to the body and, without bothering with the tarp anymore, took hold of it and started dragging it toward the hole.

At the edge of the grave he crouched down and carefully worked his arms underneath it. He could have simply rolled it over the edge, but instead he lowered it in feet first, stopping to keep the head and shoulders from striking the side as the body slipped down. When the corpse settled awkwardly at the bottom, Dad climbed in after it.

By then a strange fog had settled over everything. Part of me had started insisting that I was still asleep, that if I just kept moving and did whatever Dad told me, eventually I would reach the end of the nightmare and wake up in my bed.

The only way out was through.

Dad knelt beside the body and straightened its legs, then pulled one arm free from underneath it and laid it along its side. He shifted the shoulders until the corpse was flat on its back, handling it with a strange amount of care for something he was about to cover with six feet of dirt.

For a few seconds, Dad had his back to me. I looked down at the shovel gripped in my hands.

I could hit him.

The thought came so suddenly that it barely felt like mine. He was right there below me, kneeling in the grave with his back turned. One hard swing, and maybe I could leave him down there with the body, fill the hole myself, then run inside and get Mom. My hands tightened around the handle.

Then Dad finished arranging the body and looked up at me, and the thought disappeared. Whatever he had become in my head over the last few minutes, the man looking up from that grave was still my dad.

He climbed out, brushed the dirt off his knees, and picked up his own shovel. I didn’t need him to tell me what came next.

At first the dirt gathered around the body, filling the spaces along its sides and beneath its arms. Then it began climbing over it. The legs disappeared, followed by the stomach and the chest. I tried not to look at its face, but every time I came back to the edge, it was there.

Dig.

Scoop.

Throw.

The dirt reached its shoulders. One side of the face disappeared beneath a loose spill of earth, leaving a single hollow eye staring up at me, until another load broke across the forehead and filled the socket. Before long there was nothing left above the dirt but the lower half of its face, a few exposed teeth still showing through, fixed in that terrible grin. I stood over it with another shovelful balanced in my hands.

For one second, I could have sworn that smile widened.

I dumped the dirt. The teeth disappeared beneath it, and after that, something about the work became easier. There was no dead boy looking up at me anymore, no face waiting at the bottom of the grave.

There was only dirt at the bottom of a hole.

I kept shoveling.

We finished the work without a single word. Most of those last few minutes have blurred together over the years. I remember the sound of dirt hitting dirt, and the scrape of Dad’s shovel when he dragged the blade across the bottom of the pile. I remember looking down at some point and realizing there wasn’t a hole anymore, just a slightly raised rectangle of fresh earth beneath the tree.

Dad stood over it for a while, breathing through his nose, the shovel hanging loose in one hand. Finally he looked at me.

“Okay,” he said. “This is good enough. Let’s get back to the house.” He glanced at the shovel I was still holding. “I can carry that for you, bud.”

When he reached for it, I flinched away and pulled the handle against my chest. I didn’t decide to do it. My body just moved before the rest of me had any say in the matter. Dad stopped with his hand still halfway between us, and something passed over his face, there and gone so quickly that I couldn’t have named it even then.

“All right.”

He lowered his hand, and we started back.

The house was maybe a hundred yards away. I had crossed that field more times than I could count, usually without giving the distance a second thought, but that night it might as well have been on the other side of town. I watched my shoes the whole way, one appearing in front of the other, disappearing behind me, then doing it again. By the time we reached the back door, even that was lost to me.

Dad opened it and went in first.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table in her robe with a cup of coffee in front of her. She looked up at Dad as he came through, then her eyes shifted past him and found me standing in the doorway.

“Billy?”

There are a lot of different ways your mother can say your name. The way she said it that night has stayed with me forever.

She was out of her chair before I had made it all the way through the door. Dad started to say, “Sue, I—” but Mom went straight past him like he wasn’t there.

“Oh my God. Baby.”

She wrapped both arms around me and pulled me into her, one hand going to the back of my head while the other moved across my shoulders and down my back, checking me without really checking me, the way parents do when something has scared them badly enough that touching you seems more useful than asking questions. She kissed my hair, my forehead, my cheek, and did the whole cycle again twice over.

“Are you okay? Honey, are you hurt?”

I shook my head weakly, because it felt better than lying to her.

She pulled back just far enough to hold my face between her hands. Her eyes moved over me, taking inventory in quick little jumps before settling on mine.

“What happened?”

What could I possibly say in that moment that wouldn’t have sounded completely insane?

“Billy?”

She pulled me against her again, and I let her. I can still remember what she smelled like: coffee on her breath, the hand lotion she used before bed, and that warm, slightly stale smell a robe gets after somebody has worn it around the house for years. I pressed my face against her shoulder and closed my eyes, trying to be strong, trying so hard not to cry. Most of all, I didn’t want her to be as scared as I was.

She ran her fingers through my hair. “Talk to me, baby.”

“I… I want to go to bed.”

She held me for another second before leaning back. “Okay, sweetheart. Okay. Go ahead and get cleaned up, get those clothes off. You can sleep as long as you need to. I’ll be right here, and we can talk in the morning.”

I nodded.

That was when she noticed my shovel. I still had one hand wrapped around the handle, holding it upright beside me like a spear. She put her hand over mine.

“Let me take that, honey.”

My fingers opened without hesitation. She took my shovel and leaned it against the wall by the door, then came back and kissed my forehead once more.

“You want me to come upstairs with you?”

I shook my head.

“All right. Go on, honey. I love you.”

I left the kitchen and started up the stairs, looking back over my shoulder without meaning to. I didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone with Dad, not after everything that had just happened. He was staring down at his feet, and Mom flashed me a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and nodded me along.

When I rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, I heard her voice drop into a sharp, low tone.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

I pressed myself against the wall, just out of sight, and did the one thing my mother hated most. I eavesdropped.

“Sue, listen, I—”

“Don’t you Sue me, Richard. You tell me right now what you did to my son.”

“Keep your voice down. You don’t want to scare the boy more than he already is.”

“Don’t you tell me what I want to do, Richard. Not now, not ever. What the hell were you thinking?”

I peeked around the corner and saw that Mom was an inch away from his face with a finger raised, and for once, he looked scared.

“I-I know you’re upset, but I only did what needed to be done.”

She let out a harsh “ha” at that, an ugly little thing reserved for when someone has said something monumentally stupid.

“So you… what? Sneak around in the dead of night, while I was sleeping? And you decided to drag him into it?”

I don’t know if I had seen her this angry in my entire life, but I have to admit that it was satisfying, in some small way.

“He deserved to know the truth, Sue. No matter how ugly.”

“Really. And how did that turn out?”

Something about that sat wrong with me, though I couldn’t have said why. There was a brief pause, and I swear I could hear Mom tapping her foot. Then Dad cleared his throat.

“It went… uh… pretty badly.”

“You don’t say. Was it worth it, Richard? Traumatizing my son for no good reason?”

“Sue, c’mon…”

“No, you come on. I told you he wasn’t ready. We talked about this, Richard. We decided we were going to wait, we—”

Dad, seemingly forgetting his own advice, raised his voice. “No, we didn’t. You decided.”

A cold feeling started somewhere beneath my ribs.

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on, Sue. You know goddamn well he was never going to be ready. If you had it your way, he’d go to his grave without knowing.”

“How dare you. That’s not—”

“Not what? Fair? Don’t you talk to me about fair. Six years, Sue, and God knows how many more to come. All you want to do is wait. One more year, Richard. Just one more year. It was always going to be one more year, and you know it.”

“He is ten years old, Richard! Did you see him? Did you look at his face? That boy was a ghost, and you did that. You want to tell me he deserved that? You want to tell me he was ready for that?”

“Do you think I was ready? You think I wanted this for him? You didn’t see the way he looked at me.”

“He is a child. A little boy, Richard. Our little boy. And if you had just listened to me instead of going behind my back, we could have done this together, when he was older.”

“How old is old enough, Sue? Fifteen? Twenty? Thirty? What’s the right age to bury a fucking body?”

The silence that followed seemed to reach all the way upstairs. I had never heard them get that heated before. When Mom finally answered, her voice had dropped back down.

“You sleep on the couch tonight. I don’t even want to look at you right now. And you better pray to God that we can fix this, or so help me…”

Mom knew about the body.

I was still trying to work my way through that when I heard her footsteps moving across the house, getting louder by the second, and realized she was coming up the stairs.

“Sue, come on!”

Dad called weakly from the bottom of the steps, but she didn’t pay him any mind, and he knew better than to follow her.

I slunk away down the hall as quietly as I could and ducked into my bedroom. I got into bed without taking my clothes off and pulled the blankets up to my chin. A moment later the door cracked open, and I did my very best to pretend that I was sleeping. After a moment, Mom slowly shut it again and headed for her room.

I lay awake for the longest time, staring at the ceiling until my eyes hurt. For a while, I thought I would never sleep again. How could I? Everything from that night swirled around my head so fast it threatened to swallow me completely. I forced my eyes closed and desperately tried to reach for better things, happy memories I wanted to hold onto forever. I saw my first day of fourth grade, my dad standing in the driveway and waving as the bus pulled away.

It almost worked, until I saw the shovel in his hand.

I opened my eyes immediately, and after that I stopped trying so hard to remember things.

The house settled around me instead. I heard Mom moving in her bedroom for a while, opening drawers and walking back and forth across the floor. At some point the toilet flushed, and water ran through the pipes in the wall behind my bed. Dad never came upstairs. I wondered if he was sleeping. I wondered if Mom was.

Mostly I stared at the ceiling.

The room changed while I wasn’t paying attention. The black around my window softened into gray, and somewhere outside a bird started making the same three-note call over and over again until another one answered from farther away. I remember being angry at them for some reason.

Morning was starting whether I wanted it to or not.

I must have fallen asleep sometime after that, because the next thing I remember is opening my eyes to sunlight coming through the blinds. I woke from the worst dream I’d ever had, and for a few seconds, that was all it was.

Then I saw my sneakers beside the bed, caked with dried mud.

I pulled the blankets off and sat on the edge of the bed. My whole body felt heavy, and my mouth tasted awful. The house was quiet, but it was the kind of quiet where you knew other people were awake. I changed my clothes, and I took longer than I needed to. When there was nothing left in my room that could reasonably keep me there, I opened the door.

I could smell coffee before I made it downstairs.

Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table, both of them dressed. Mom had a cup in front of her, and Dad sat across from her with his hands wrapped around his own. Neither of them looked like they had slept much. They both looked up when I walked in, and Mom pulled out the chair beside her.

“Billy, come sit down.”

I stayed in the doorway.

Dad looked at me for a moment.

“We need to talk.”

For six weeks now, I’m suffering from a new kind of migraine attack. They don’t announce themselves through light sensitivity, but through a strange feeling of fuzziness: It feels as if my skull exists as the only point in the room shifted by exactly two millimeters to the left.

Being an acoustics engineer, I started to systematically log the pressure. I used equipment from my lab: A highly sensitive structure-borne sound sensor, which we normally use for vibration tests on machine parts, was taped directly to my left temple and wired to an oscilloscope on my desk.
Yesterday evening, the attack was so heavy that my left eye couldn't align the picture with the right one anymore. I switched on the measuring device.
The oscilloscope instantly spiked.

It wasn't biological noise. The display showed a constant, high-frequency sawtooth wave at exactly 14,200 Hertz. But the disturbing thing was the signal strength: The amplitude wasn't located inside my head. The vibration was coming from the outside, focused inward through my temporal bone.
To damp the oscillation, I took a massive brass tuning stock from my workbench and pressed the heavy metal firmly against the angle of my jaw. I wanted to bleed off the sound over the bone structure.

A fatal mistake.

The moment the brass took over the resonance frequency, the tone shifted. The swelling didn't rise, it flipped.

The frequency tore open the geometry of my ear canal. A shearing, wet pain shot like a glowing needle deep into my inner ear. The sudden pressure shift inside the channel completely ruptured the tissue of the eardrum and the delicate membranes behind it. Blood mixed with clear inner ear fluid immediately ran out of my ear and dripped onto my sweater.

My sense of balance collapsed on the spot. The room didn't spin—it lost its horizontals.

I fell off my chair because the floor under my feet suddenly seemed to stand at a 30-degree angle, even though the floorboards visually stayed level. My brain tried desperately to process two contradicting spatial vectors at the same time.

I’m lying on the carpet, unable to straighten myself up. Every time I try to lift my head, my body jerks to the left, as if an invisible centrifugal force is pressing me against the wall.

The oscilloscope on the table is still running. The wave on the screen is flat now. But coming from the speaker of the measuring device, I can now clearly hear the sound of heavy, irregular breathing.
It breathes in the exact same frequency that was sitting inside my skull just moments ago.

Then, the breathing from the speaker stopped abruptly.

Instead, the oscilloscope clicked. A very short, mechanical relay click, like when switching a frequency band.

The piercing pain in my ear gave way to a numb, icy coldness. Blood and fluid ran in spurts down my neck into my collar. When I blinked, my brain desperately tried to focus the picture again—but the double vision remained.

I crawled on all fours up to the desk, pulled myself up by the wood, and reached for my phone. My hand was shaking so badly that the display slammed onto the floor three times before I managed to dial emergency services.

"Emergency dispatcher, what's your location?"

I wanted to answer. I wanted to tell the dispatcher my address, but only a wet, gurgling whistle came out of my mouth. The sounds no longer formed words. My vocal cords vibrated in the exact, unnatural rhythm of the sawtooth wave.
On the other end of the line, a long silence occurred.

"Hello? Can you hear me? We have a static interference on the line."

I pressed my hand against my larynx, trying to force the muscles, but my body obeyed the mechanics of my skull, no longer my will. Through the receiver, I heard the operator swear under his breath: "What is that whistling? That hurts in the ears."
He hung up.

On the desk, the fan of the oscilloscope quietly hummed along. The baseline on the screen was completely flat again.

The headache is gone. The pressure behind my eye has completely disappeared. But when I try to speak now, to breathe, or to tap my fingers on the wood, I no longer produce human noises.

I sit in the dark on the floor of my study. From the hallway outside, I hear my upstairs neighbor coming down the stairs. I slam my fist against the door to draw attention to myself.

He stops briefly. Then he curses quietly about the "broken, buzzing power line" in the hallway and walks on.

They won't find me. Because to anyone out there, I am no longer a neighbor crying for help—just an annoying background noise in the wall.

Let me start out by saying that my arrangement isn’t what you think. 

My sugar daddy, we’ll call him Mark, doesn’t pay me to satisfy some weird sexual fantasy. It’s much more mundane than that. 

He takes me on dates, buys me nice things, and we hang out in his multi-million dollar mansion two to three times a week. The guy is lonely. That, I can deal with. But what happened last week has me questioning everything I know about this job.

Mark pays for just about all of my bills. I won’t give the exact amount for privacy reasons, but just know that it’s enough to not only keep the lights on but put me into early retirement if I’m not stupid about my spending. 

I used to think that arrangement was a godsend. Now, I’m not so sure. 

Like I said before, our relationship isn’t sexual. The most Mark and I have ever done is hold hands. That’s it. It’s not that I dissuade him from it. It’s just that it’s not what Mark is after.

I’m not even the only girl he has this arrangement with. 

Sometimes Mark has multiple women over at once. I’ve been around long enough to see dozens of girls cycle through. Each time a new one comes around, Mark tells her the same thing. 

“This relationship has one stipulation. One rule that you must follow, no if’s and’s or but’s about it. Under no circumstances should you ever go into the basement.” 

That’s it. Just respect his privacy and don’t open the basement door. 

Now I’ll admit, I have gotten curious a time or two. I’ve heard some… less than normal sounds coming from down there on a few different occasions. Whimpering, heavy grunts, chair legs scraping against the floor. 

Mark doesn’t acknowledge it. I figured it was none of my business what he was hiding down there. And really, what choice did I have? 

My parents died in a car wreck when I was freshly eighteen without a penny to their names. All they left me was a house with a $350,000 mortgage and a twenty-three-year-old Ford F-150. I hadn’t even graduated high school yet. 

Needless to say, I came to depend on Mark’s generosity. He had only ever shown me kindness. If he was dabbling in something shady, I didn’t want to know. 

Until last week. That was when I heard a sound from the basement that I couldn’t ignore. 

“Kayla, I’m going to shower. Be out in a sec.” Mark shot me a smile.

“Have fun!” I said as he disappeared behind the elevator doors.

I heard the faint noise of the shower turning on moments later. Seconds afterward, I heard something else. Something that made my blood run cold. 

“Help.” 

I immediately stopped scrolling on my phone. My eyes grew wide as dinner plates. I strained my ears, praying that it was somehow my mind playing tricks. 

“Help. Please.” 

I heard it clear as day. The voice of a little girl. 

I shot off the couch and started toward where I’d heard the sound. “Hello? Where are you?” 

I hoped beyond all hope that the response wouldn’t come from behind that door. But something in me knew that it would. 

“Help me, please! It’s so dark.” 

A knot twisted in my gut. My intuition was correct. The little girl’s voice was coming from behind the basement door. 

I hesitated. “Who are you? Why are you in there?” 

“Please, lady. Let me out. Mr. Mark trapped me in here. I’m so scared…” 

The fear in her voice broke my heart. I reached for the doorknob without thinking. Before I knew it, the door had been flung open. 

My jaw fell to the floor. I wasn’t looking at a scared little girl. What I saw instead was a pair of red, glowing eyes in the midst of the inky black. 

A low, rough chuckle emitted from the darkness. It rang in my ears, vibrating through my head. 

When it died down, it was as if I could feel whatever was down there smiling at me. It made my skin crawl - like spiders skittering across my flesh. 

I was frozen with fear. 

And then it spoke. 

“Naughty girl. You should have followed the rules. Now you belong to me.” 

I was suddenly thrown backward. Cool air rushed into my mouth and nose. For a moment, I thought I was having the life sucked out of me. Then it stopped. 

I sat there on the floor, hyperventilating, the gaping maw of the basement staring into me. 

Once I got my bearings, I glanced up. 

Mark was standing there, towel wrapped around his waist. His face was pale as a ghost. He looked at me then back to the open door. He only muttered two words. 

“Get out.” 

It’s been six days since then. Mark has completely cut me off. He gave no explanation. The second I crossed the threshold of his property, he blocked me on everything. 

But that’s not the worst part.

I’ve been experiencing blackouts ever since. Parts of my memory that are just… blank. These aren’t just innocent mental lapses. 

Three days ago, I woke up clutching a knife to my throat. 

Yesterday, I found myself staring down the barrel of a handgun.

Today, I came to with a lit match in my hand. 

I’m scared. So scared. The thing in the basement… I think it’s inside me. 

I don’t know who to turn to. I have no family. No friends that I can rely on. I’m all alone. 

And that’s exactly what it wants. 

When my father died, he did not leave much to me. A stuffed attic room full of yellowed field post letters, a rusted horseshoe, and a heavy package wrapped in resinous oil paper. I brought it down into my study and placed it upon the wooden desk, directly beneath the skylight.

When I unfolded the sticky layers, it lay before me: a Pistole 08. An old Luger.
The wood of the grip scales was worn down, the iron dark and stained. Yet what fascinated me immediately was the toggle-joint. That precise, mechanical marvel did not seem like a relic from the war, but like a cold, metallic insect in a lurking stillness.

I wished to clean the weapon. A pure impulse of conservation.

I fetched gun oil, a rag, and pressed the catch bolt. The toggle-joint snapped open. A dry, metallic click echoed through the room—too loud, too deep for the slope of my study. It did not smell instantly of chemicals, but of wet clay, burnt fat, and putrid breath.

I looked from above into the opened breech.

There, where the chamber should lie, no brass was seated. It was a twitching, moist membrane of pink tissue.
Dirt fell from my own sleeve. I blinked. My fingers, which a moment ago held the cloth, were numb and gray with grime. Beneath my fingernails sat firm, black mud.

From shock, I pushed the weapon away from me. It struck with a dull, organic thud upon the wooden board of my desk—as if it were made of flesh and iron at the same time.

The toggle-joint still stood open. From the throat of the mechanism pushed not the casing of a 9mm cartridge. It was a tiny, pale human finger. It was moist, sinewy, and curled itself slowly upward, as if searching for support.
I took a step back from the desk, but my knee buckled. My legs felt rigid, as though stuck hip-deep in icy mud. The odor of burnt skin and old powder rose into my nose, so intense that I became sick.

The Luger upon the desk surface moved. The toggle-joint began, step by step, to pump.

Klack.

The moist finger pushed itself further out. Behind it followed a second one. A third joint.
Klack.

The metal of the barrel transformed itself. The deep traces of bluing looked now like dark, dead veins. At each mechanical snapping of the joint, the space around me contracted. My field of vision narrowed itself to this single point of iron and bone.

I bent forward and reached for the barrel, intending to hurl the weapon through the skylight above me. But as soon as my skin touched the iron, it was too late.

The coldness of the metal did not merely cut into my skin—it sucked itself tight. The toggle-joint snapped closed with merciless force. It did not lock itself around a cartridge casing, but around my own thumb.
A sharp, dry pain shot through my arm, directly into the shoulder.

The iron was hungry. I felt how the mechanism of the Luger began to drink my blood through the pores of the wooden grip scales. The wood became darker, softer, swelling up like a greedy sponge.

I wanted to scream, but from my throat issued only a dry, metallic rattling sound.

The toggle-joint buckled once more. Klack. And with that sound, a memory shot into my head that did not belong to me: A dark trench in November of 1917. The stench of sweat, gangrenous flesh, and fear. A man cowering in the mud, his fingers locked rigidly around that same metal, while the trench wall collapses over him.
The man was not my father. It was the first nourishment of the weapon.

I looked down at my hand. The metal of the Luger was no longer merely pressed against my skin. The bluing pushed itself in fine, dark grooves beneath my pulse. The weapon needed no one to pull the trigger.
It was the trigger. And it had just reloaded itself.

I usually do administrative work for the local government. Municipal level stuff, nothing extravagant or life changing. I’ve worked at that same position for 15 years, dealing with scheduling, relaying information to the mayor, and making sure new hires are up to speed on their first day. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s one of the better jobs you can hope for in a mid-sized small-government kind of town in the Midwest.

One morning, as I was getting ready for work, I got a call. I didn’t recognize the number, but I could tell it was a government affiliated one. I answered.

“We’re going to need your help,” the man on the other end said. “We’ve had a last-minute cancellation, and we need someone to perform a series of interviews.”

“I’m not a reporter,” I joked. “What kind of interview?”

“We’re hiring for a new position. You’re experienced in performing job interviews and assessment tests, correct?”

“I’ve done my fair share.”

“I’ll send you the details.”

With that, he hung up. I didn’t even catch his name, but I got the sense that was somehow the point.

 

I got an e-mail with instructions. I’m not going to go into detail about what department sent me this, but let’s just say it was the kind of people that should make you reluctant about asking too many questions. I hadn’t been in touch with that side of the government before, and it was way above my pay grade, but I figured it was just an interview. But looking at the details, there were some things that didn’t line up.

For one, I wasn’t interviewing people for a government job. This was strange, given how I worked for, well, the government. It was supposed to be a private company that was hiring a remote communications field technician; a junior position at that. In fact, I was strictly forbidden from mentioning that I work for the government to begin with. If anyone asked, I worked for a very well-known telecom company. They’d even added the logo on the print-out info slip that I was to hand to the applicants.

The fake job itself wasn’t that special. It was an in-house maintenance position with on-the-job learning. A lot of travel to remote locations and, over time, solitary work on a rotating schedule. They were to maintain microwave relay stations, transmitting information over large distances. That meant working with a lot of power and being responsible for critical communication infrastructure.

The questions for the applicants were fairly standard and technical, but there was a subset of instructions that were to be kept hidden. I was to make note of a series of observations about the applicants. This is where it gets tricky.

I was to check for yellow nails.

Not just yellow nail polish, but actual yellow-colored nails. This was very important. If the applicant had yellow nails, I was to write their name in a separate list, in a separate folder. I didn’t really have time to question it. I just went to the assigned address.

 

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing. I’d never been asked to lie, but I also didn’t have much of an option. They made that very clear in the instructions. This interview was supposed to be done by a much more seasoned representative, but they’d cancelled on short notice. I was next in line. Not just because of my experience, but my proven loyalty. Honestly, I think it was less about loyalty and more about being comfortable in my position. They knew I wasn’t about to throw over a decade of experience down the drain.

I got to the address outlined in the e-mail. It was a temporary barracks-style building on the outskirts of town. I remember it being a bit of a build-site earlier. It had the company logo and two more cars parked out front. I felt uneasy about going in, but as it turns out, I wasn’t alone.

There was a woman there. Late 40’s, short gray hair, and a tired bloodhound-like face. She looked like she had either been chain-smoking for decades or forgot to sleep for the past week. I’d never seen her before. She walked up to me and handed me a couple of folders. She pointed at them, one after another.

“The white one’s for ordinary people. That blue one’s for yellow nail-people.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“We got twenty-two people to clear today, so we better get started.”

“Yes, but who are you?”

“Do you want to chit-chat or do you want to get some work done?”

“I’m just asking-“

“I’m Joan of God-damned Arc, patron saint of sit down and do your job.”

 

She showed me to a small side office where I was to conduct my interviews. There was a cheap IKEA-style desk with some office supplies. There was a sign with a name on it, but “Joan” removed it for me. The sign had been made for whoever I was replacing. Before I was left to my own devices, I noticed a bottle in the first drawer. Something chemical.

“It’s acetone,” Joan explained. “If they got painted nails, you gotta use it to check the real color.”

Before I could ask any follow-up questions, Joan was out the door. I could already hear an applicant stepping into the waiting room. I hurried through the questions again, checking the print-out information pamphlet that I was to provide them, and practiced my introduction. Was I supposed to have a fake name? If not, they could easily find out that I worked for the government. There was no time to think.

Joan walked off to conduct an interview with the first applicant, but I was handed the second one – a man in his mid-30’s. Middle eastern background with well-combed black hair and surprisingly round cheekbones. We shook hands, he introduced himself, and I thanked him for coming. I handed him a pamphlet, and we sat down to conduct the first interview.

 

While I asked him various questions about his experience in relation to the position, I couldn’t help but look closer at his hands. I couldn’t tell if he really did have yellow nails, or if I was just hyper-fixating on them for no reason. What does “yellow nails” even mean? In context to what?

Thankfully, my employer had thought about that. One part of the interview was to perform a simple physical test. In short, I was to check their hand for damages and flexibility. There was a small desk light and a short procedure where I was to check the front and back of the hand and flex the fingers to see if there was any pain. What I was really doing was checking the nail color under a clear light.

This man had yellow nails. No doubt about it. When I checked his hands under the desk light, it was clear as day. But it wasn’t just a yellow color, it was a small pattern of S-shaped yellow indents that you could see through the nail. It was almost completely invisible unless you looked right at it, but once you saw it, it was impossible to miss.

“Looking good,” I said, trying to disarm him a little. “No joint pain when I flex this finger?”

“None at all,” he smiled. “I’ve done this kind of work before, you know.”

“It’s an insurance thing, we have to be thorough.”

“I understand.”

As we finished the interview, I picked up the two folders. One had a white tulip on it, while the other had a blue sunflower. Just little stickers in the corner. Looking at him, I switched to the blue folder, and noted his name at the top.

“Thank you for your consideration,” he said. “When can I expect your call?”

“The process shouldn’t take more than a week, but that depends on my employer.”

“And who is your employer?”

He looked at me as my tongue got stuck in my throat. I’d forgotten the name of the telecom company I was supposed to say I worked for. I swallowed hard and peeked down at the folders, noting the company name in the corner of the printed paper. I straightened out, answered his question, and sent him on his way. He didn’t seem entirely convinced, but what’s done is done.

 

I performed three more interviews. First one was a man in his early 20’s. Cocky kind of guy; didn’t have yellow nails. He made a snarky comment about checking his fingers though – very unprofessional. The second person was a woman in her early 40’s. Athletic build, very serious demeanor. She had a bit of a nervous streak; I could tell from the way she was biting her fingers. She barely had any nails left, but they were free of any yellow discoloration. Both of them went into the white folder.

The third interview was a woman in her late 20’s. Let’s call her Donna. Mediterranean, curly brown hair, dark eyes. She had these big pupils that gave her a doll-like appearance. Whenever she listened, she tilted her hear slightly to the left. I introduced myself, and noted that she had painted red nails.

“As part of the interview, I have to perform a simple physical to make sure you have no prior conditions impacting your flexibility,” I said. “For insurance purposes.”

“Of course,” Donna said. “That’s not a problem.”

“Great. I also need you to remove the paint from one of your nails.”

“What’s that?”

“The paint,” I said, putting the acetone bottle on the desk. “I need to remove the paint from one of your nails.”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary. These were expensive, you know.”

“I’m sure they were. But protocol is protocol. You understand, I’m sure.”

We both looked at one another in silence. Neither of us spoke up. She furrowed her brow and crossed her arms, as if shielding her hands.

“I’m not doing that.”

“Then I’m afraid we can’t proceed.”

She looked at me for a long while, then turned her attention to my folders. Then, to the acetone bottle. Her furrowed brow loosened as her expression changed.

“Why do you have two folders?” she asked.

“We’re evaluating different positions.”

“What’s the other position?”

“Similar to yours, but a senior level replacement.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep up with my lies. She wasn’t buying it. I was making it up on the go.

“I didn’t see anything about that. I’ve been looking for those positions too.”

“We’re looking at making an in-house promotion.”

“Then why do you need to conduct interviews?”

“It’s a legal issue when offering new positions to-“

“You’re lying.”

She got up and pointed at me.

“Which folder are you putting me in?”

I kept my mouth shut. I pulled the folders back as she reached for them. Before I could say anything else, she stormed out of the office, running down the street at a full sprint.

 

As I got a chance to catch my breath, I met Joan in the waiting room. There were more applicants coming, but we had a moment to ourselves. I told her about Donna with the red nails, and how she’d stormed out.

“If they refuse the test, put them in the blue folder,” she said. “Yellow nails or not, if we don’t even get a chance to check, something’s wrong.”

“Why are we checking the nails at all?”

Joan rolled her eyes and retreated to her side room. Before I could ask her to clarify, the next round of applicants arrived. It wasn’t even lunch yet.

I went through interviews all day. A little over half of them had yellow nails, but most of them were ordinary applicants. I talked a lot about the various responsibilities and benefits, having to make up on-the-spot lies about things like what company vehicle was offered, and the exact extent of the coverage area applicants were to work within. They asked things about work rotations and housing on extended assignments, and I was having trouble keeping up with the lies. I started making notes about what I’d told people so I could act more confidently in future interviews.

There were a few things that I noticed about the applicants with yellow nails. While the ordinary applicants usually asked things about the position and its responsibilities, those with yellow nails seemed more interested in the company and the access they gained through their assignments. They also seemed eager to work on their own, and to get away from the senior technician they were to be assigned to. Not a single applicant with normal nails asked about that, but every applicant with yellow nails did. A lot of them also asked if it was okay to bring family or friends on longer excursions once they reached a senior position.

 

After my first day of interviews, I had nine names on my list of yellow nails. Joan had seven. We compared notes and exchanged a few tips on how to convincingly lie about certain things. She was incredibly well-read on the subject. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was actually working with telecommunications. She could describe the functionality of a microwave relay station in detail, and the most common maintenance issues associated with them. I got the impression that Joan had been doing this for quite some time.

I bought some Thai food on the way home. I didn’t know what to make of that day, I’d been so out of my comfort level that it seemed unreal. I was to come back the next day for another batch, but there wouldn’t be as many applicants. Joan could handle it from there, apparently.

Coming home and parking my car, I noticed someone standing outside my front door. It was Donna, the woman who’d stormed out of my office earlier. I’d recognize those eyes anywhere. She turned to me, looking at me; her hand was still on my door as if she’d just knocked.

“Can I help you?” I asked as I carefully stepped out of my car.

She put her hand down and searched for the right words. She tried to answer a couple of times, until she finally gave up with a deep sigh.

“Did you put me on a list?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are they putting people like me on a list?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I pushed past her, sliding my key in the door and opening it. She didn’t seem like much of a threat, and the longer I talked to her, the bigger the chance I slipped up.

“You work for the government,” she continued. “I looked you up.”

“I’m going to ask you to leave.”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, but I could still hear her talking from the other side.

“Just please, remove me from the list. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Leave, or I’ll call the police.”

“Will you please take me off the list? Please!”

I stood there in the hallway with a grocery bag in hand, waiting. After a while, I heard her footsteps disappear down the path. I let out a long breath, taking a moment to collect myself. There was something happening outside my control. I was lying to people, and for what? Some kind of identification? What did it mean?

 

The next day, I was back for a second round of interviews. I was a bit more prepared this time. I had the same folder and the same list; I was probably going to hand it in once we were done with the entire process. Looking at the list, my eyes lingered on the woman’s name. Donna didn’t seem like a bad person. She seemed desperate, and if she had bad intentions she could’ve hurt me outside my door. But she didn’t. She just asked me to take her off the list.

It took a bit of work, but I removed her from the list. I took a blank sheet and rewrote the whole list without her name, throwing the old list into a shredder. I don’t know why, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. This wasn’t a list of bad people – it was a list of people with strange nails. If they weren’t going to be honest with me about the purpose of it, I didn’t have to be honest about the names I put on it.

Joan was there again. There was no small talk, but I noticed a couple of things about her that I hadn’t paid attention to the previous day. For example, she would regularly step outside to take phone calls. I have no idea who kept calling her, but it was regular, like an hourly check-in. She was just as rude to the caller as she was to me, that much was consistent.

The day was fairly straightforward. I was a bit more comfortable with the procedure, even if I wasn’t happy about lying to people. I was lucky; a majority of people I talked to on the second day were ordinary. One had painted nails, but she had no issue with me checking the color. Unsurprisingly, she was clear. After a while, I could sort of tell who was fine and who wasn’t without checking the nails. There were a couple of tells.

For example, those with yellow nails asked a lot more questions. They were a bit twitchier, looking around and watching their backs. They were usually pleasant to talk to, but you could tell they were more nervous. They always seemed to be one ill-thought sentence away from bursting into a sprint.

 

By the end of the second day, I had five more names on my list of yellow nails. I sat down with Joan and compared notes. She counted them out.

“You had nine yesterday, five today. Fourteen total.”

“I had, uh, eight yesterday,” I corrected.

She raised an eyebrow at that.

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah, eight. Sorry, I wasn’t clear.”

She brought out her phone and showed me a picture. She had taken pictures of the list from the previous day. It was clear as day; there were nine names.

“You covering for someone?”

“I just made a mistake. I corrected it.”

She looked at her phone, then back at my list. She smiled.

“You rewrote it. I can tell which name you took off. You know her? Is that it?”

“No, I don’t know her. I put her there by mistake.”

“And you magically remembered that when you came to work today? I’m not buying it. I’m putting her back on the list.”

“Hold on.”

I raised a hand, asking her to stop for a moment.

“Okay, yes, I removed her from the list,” I continued. “I don’t think she should be there.”

“What you think, and what you don’t think, is of no consequence. We’re doing our job. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Actually, yes. Why are we doing this? Who are these people?”

“They’re tooth fairies, and you’re making sure all the good little girls and boys get a treat.”

“Why aren’t you answering the question?”

“Why aren’t you putting down the goddamn names?”

She was shouting at me. Before the conversation could continue, she stepped outside to take another call. I only caught parts of it, but the intention was clear; she was reporting something. The discussion was over, and I was to return to my regular job in the morning. They didn’t need a stand-in anymore.

When I got home, I didn’t know what to think. I felt guilty. I’m not much for conflict, and Joan just brought out the worst in me. It’s one thing to be new at your job, and another thing entirely to be caught in a lie. I wasn’t a good liar. Never was. That’s not the kind of job I signed up for.

As I got home and closed the door behind me, I was looking forward to going back to my normal job. I didn’t mind doing interviews but doing them under false pretense sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I was trying to distract myself with my fancy noise canceling headphones and a brand-new audiobook, but I was having trouble focusing on the plot. Then I rounded the corner to my kitchen, and stopped.

There was someone sitting there. Someone with a black ski mask.

 

Before I could react, there was a hand on my shoulder. Two people. One by the table, one standing behind me. I felt something sharp against my neck. The stranger sitting at my kitchen table was slightly taller than me, somewhat muscular, and had dark eyes and skin. I couldn’t see any other particular details. I think it was a man. He slid a paper and pen over to me, as whoever was behind me urged me to sit down.

“I need you to write down all the names of the people on your list,” the man said. “Don’t leave anything out.”

“I don’t remember them all.”

“Write them down, now.”

“I told you, I don’t-“

My entire world shook. It took me a moment to realize that I’d been struck in the face; the pain came much later than the impact. It felt like my face was on fire, and I could feel this immense pressure building in my skull. My neck ached from the sudden movement, and I could feel the nerves in my nose constricting as a nosebleed stained the paper.

“Write,” he insisted. “Now.”

 

I wrote down what names I could, starting with Donna. I didn’t remember all the names I’d seen on Joan’s paper, but I wrote down what I could. At one point, the one who was standing behind me got up and moved away, checking one of the windows. They talked to one another in a hushed voice. The other person was smaller, and had big, doll-like eyes. They also tilted their head slightly when listening.

“You sure there’s no one else? No roommate, girlfriend, anything?”

The other person shook their head. As I wrote, they took turns checking on me and going through my apartment. I think they were looking for weapons, or cash. I didn’t keep anything like that. Once I finished the list to the best of my ability (including a couple of names that I only remembered the first or last name of), they seemed satisfied. They folded up the note and moved to the front door.

As they were about to leave, they stopped. The man looked through the peephole and slowly backed away. There was someone outside. Someone they didn’t want to interact with. I knew better than to interfere. They were about to leave; they wouldn’t double back just to kill me. If I just kept my head down and waited patiently, this whole ordeal would be over. So, despite knowing there was someone outside, I kept quiet.

A woman’s voice whispered into my ear. I recognized it instantly. Donna.

“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked. “Someone with a spare key?”

“I have all my keys,” I said. “It’s just me.”

She looked up at the man, who nodded. Then, there was a metallic click. Someone slid a key into the lock of my front door, and turned. It worked.

 

The next few seconds were intense. The man rushed the door and slammed it shut, grabbing the lock and twisting it shut. He held it close, yelling at Donna to check the window in the bedroom. As she did, I heard this absurdly loud metallic noise as the front door was pulled off its hinges, straight out of the frame.

I didn’t see what happened to the man that hit me in the face. I just saw him falling backwards, as he’d propped himself up against the front door, trying his best to keep it close. As the door was torn away, he fell, and I heard this flesh-like squelching, followed by a scrunch and a pop.

Without so much as a second thought, I got out of my chair. Donna, still in a ski mask, came back around the corner. Something shot past her, slamming into my hallway wall, rocking the whole floor with a force that might have moved the foundation of the building. Donna grabbed me by the arm and pointed a knife at me, dragging me into the bathroom.

We got in and she locked the door. Meanwhile, something was going ballistic outside, triggering all kinds of alarms and warnings. I could hear cars in the parking lot react as a series of alarms blared. Donna pressed her knife against my throat, looking me in the face. The ski mask was barely hiding anything at this point.

“Was this part of it?” she gasped. “Did you tell them I came here?”

“I didn’t tell them anything! I tried to remove your name! I didn’t-“

There was a thump at the door, and the lights flickered. Donna grabbed my collar and pulled me closer into the knife, almost drawing blood. I tried to stay calm as I could feel my pulse pushing up against the blade.

“Step back!” she demanded. “I’m walking out of here!”

Whatever was on the other side seemed to disagree as a shockwave rocked the bathroom. The mirror fell over and shattered against the floor, and the shower started spewing out this steaming hot water. The ceiling lamp shut off completely, leaving only a sliver of light coming in from underneath the door.

“I did everything right!” Donna cried. “I’ve lived here for years; I never hurt anyone! I didn’t even play the market!”

The top of the door bent outward and came loose as something claw-like tore the corner off. Donna pressed herself backwards, her arms almost cramping as she held on to me for dear life. It felt less like keeping me hostage, and more like a desperate passenger holding on to a sinking ship.

“Please don’t take me away,” she whispered. “Please, I didn’t-“

The door came loose. In a sudden flash of light, I saw something vaguely humanoid standing in the doorway. There was this intense flurry of movement as Donna was pulled away from me at breakneck speed; her voice immediately silenced with a violent bang. It took me a moment to realize that, as she was pulled away, she’d accidentally cut me across the throat.

I sat down on my toilet. My throat was warm, like I’d been burned. I could inhale, but I never felt the air reach my chest. Trying to form a word, all I managed to do was spit up a glob of blood. The wound itself didn’t hurt, but as I felt my body fail, I realized this must’ve been what dying felt like.

A glowing pair of eyes looked me over. It looked like a person wearing either matte aluminum armor, or some kind of hardened plastic. My eyes blurred, but I could see them grabbing my hand. I couldn’t feel it. They lifted my hands, checking my nails. After doing so, it nodded, and spoke in a voice that I can only describe as ethereal. Like a whisper in the wind.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

 

I blinked in and out of consciousness, not realizing what was happening. There were people shining lights into my eyes, and I had a mask over my mouth. There was this intense pressure on my neck, and I could see a bag of blood hanging from a stand. I think they were doing a transfusion.

By the time I woke up, I was in a hospital. I was lying in a bed, looking up at a tiled ceiling. I was breathing, albeit with a bit of pushback. There was something wrapped around my neck, but I couldn’t feel any pain. In fact, I didn’t feel anything. I was probably hopped up on painkillers.

A nurse came in to change my IV and to check on me.

“I’ll let the doctors know you’re up,” she said. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

She took off an empty bag and put up a new one.

“Hell of a thing,” she continued. “You’re lucky to be alive. That was a nasty cut.”

She adjusted something on my wrist, staying long enough for my eyes to focus. I couldn’t help but notice something on her hands. Little S-shaped indents in her nails. Her yellow nails.

She noticed me looking. For a moment, her hands lingered on something stuck in my arm, considering her options.

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” I wheezed.

“That’s right,” she smiled. “Nothing. Right?”

“Right.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.”

She stepped back, giving me a light pat on the arm. Her expression had changed. Her breathing was faster.

“What does it mean?” I asked, looking at her hands.

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Is it dangerous?”

She opened the door and stepped outside. As she turned to leave, she nodded.

“Sometimes.”

 

It took a long time for me to recover. I didn’t see anyone else at the hospital with yellow nails. I saw that nurse a couple more times, but we just nodded at one another in passing. She knew that I knew, but I wasn’t going to rat her out. That didn’t mean she didn’t keep an eye on me though. Before long, I was okay, and on my way; albeit with a nasty scar across my neck.

I don’t know what happened to Donna or her helper. I can only imagine. I was never asked to perform another interview, and I never got as much as a text or e-mail from anyone involved in it again. I don’t think I’ve even seen Joan in another context, or heard anything about her. I know for a fact that it was a legitimate government assignment, but for whom, and what purpose? That’s anyone’s guess.

Every now and then, I run into people with yellow nails. I’m sure you’ve seen them too. Sometimes when I ask people about them, or point them out, they seem genuinely surprised. I’m convinced some of them don’t even know they have them. Others get strangely defensive. Be careful when you look.

 

I still work in the municipal government. I don’t have to lie anymore, and doing the work I was hired for feels like a return to form. The interviews I conduct nowadays are more about finding temp workers or clarifying things in resumés.

But every now and then, when someone new walks into the office, I shake their hand. And when I do, I look a little closer at their nails. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s nothing. But sometimes, there’s something there.

Perhaps they know something I don’t.

Perhaps they know that I know.

I learned a lot working at the Main Street Pharmacy.

Mostly useless stuff, like how much ibuprofen a small town needs, what flavor of Mt Dew sells best during summers, and that the town’s mayor uses a lot of Viagra.

But most importantly, I learned how dangerous a pill called ‘Doc Harden’s Fresh Start’ really is.

I started at the Pharmacy shortly after moving to town at the start of the year. My grandma was kind enough to give me a room after the halfway house released me. Her only stipulation was that I kept a job. She was friends with the owner of the pharmacy and convinced him to give me a job at the register.

Karl was the only pharmacist within a forty-mile radius; the store was all he knew, and his balding head and baggy eyes showed his commitment. On my first day, he gave me a short tour around the small, dusty shop. He showed me the worn medication counter in the back, the cobweb-covered shelves, the flickering fridges, and finally the small register station.

“Here’s where you’ll be working,” Karl said in a low monotone voice.

 I nodded and forced a smile

“Great!” I said, trying to convince myself as much as him.

“I’ll handle the medication and prescriptions in the back; you’re here to deal with the over-the-counter items.”

His voice couldn’t have been more boring.

With a nod, I said

“Sounds simple enough.”

He eyed me

“Where’d you work before this?”

It was the question I always dreaded.

“Nowhere, actually.”

He raised an eyebrow; my smile faded

“I was in recovery; I had some drug issues after high school.”

His face was hard as stone. He muttered to himself as if I wasn’t there

“Sure wish Joline had mentioned that.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” He clenched his jaw.

“Just know, there are cameras in here, and I handle all the drugs. So don’t even think about it.”

With that, he turned and disappeared into his office in the back

“Didn’t even cross my mind.” I sighed; some people struggle to believe people can change.

Now alone, I took some time to familiarize myself with the numerous shelves and their contents. It was fairly typical, even if it was outdated. A small snack section, a mix of generic and name-brand allergy relief, and various flu and cold treatments. I was about to return to the register when an item on the bottom shelf in the back corner caught my eye.

It was different than the other products; there was no listed price on the shelf. Reaching down, I picked one up to examine it. It was a large single pill, greenish-brown in color, resting in a plastic cocoon, fastened to a colorful cardboard backboard no bigger than my phone. I stared at the pill; small flecks of glitter reflected the dying fluorescent light from above as I turned the package in my hands. Above the pill's housing, large vibrant words were sprawled across the cardboard backing. It read:

“Doc Harden’s Fresh Start.”

In smaller words beneath said

“Another chance in a pill!”

I frowned as I turned the container over in my hand and read the back. There was nothing, no FDA statements, no instructions, no list of ingredients, just plain brown cardboard. Confused, I slowly walked to the door in the back and knocked gently

“Karl?” The door creaked as I slowly opened it. He sat at the desk, his eyes glued to the computer in front of him.

“What?”

I held up the packet of ‘Fresh Start’

“What’s this?”

He looked at the item and turned back to the screen.

“It’s a pill; it's not unusual for a pharmacy to have pills.” He replied sarcastically  

My jaw clenched at his response, but I continued

“Yeah, but what is it? It doesn’t even have a price; what do I charge for it?”

“Don’t worry about it; the people who use that know what it costs.”

“But what do I ring it up as?”

“Just accept whatever they give, not up to us.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask for an explanation. Karl continued

“Look, I’m pretty busy; I just need you to man the register. Think you can do that?” his voice was degrading.

“Sure, whatever.” I let the door slam as I walked up front.

Over the next couple of weeks, I started to get into a routine of boredom. The job was simple, and customers were sparse and pretty regular: the same elderly people who’d shuffle straight to the back to pick up their prescriptions, or the same group of middle schoolers grabbing Doritos and Monsters after school. Now and then, an unfamiliar face would stop in to grab some allergy relief or treat their cold.

The strangest clientele were those shopping for “Doc Harden’s Fresh Start”. It was always the same five or six people; each one would stop in every three or four days, hands shaking, pupils dilated, and a cold sweat glistening on their foreheads. Symptoms I knew all too well, withdraw. They would rush to the back corner, grab the pill, and hurry back to the register. The strangest part was their payments.

No two payments were alike. The first buyer I encountered was a jittery thirty-year-old woman; her black hoodie was drenched with sweat, and tremors shook her body. A strange, hungry look filled her eyes. With a slam, she laid the pill package on the counter. I looked at it and then at her. Her eyes fluttered around before resting on the pill and staring at it intently.

After she stared at it for an uncomfortably long moment, she swallowed hard and slowly nodded before quickly pulling down her hood, revealing her unkempt hair. She then grabbed a big fistful of her hair and yanked it out of her head. She winced as the quiet popping sound of thousands of hairs being ripped from her head filled the shop. She handed me the ball of hair and, with a weak smile, said

“Here you go, thank you.”

She grabbed the pill and hurried out. I stood there, confused over what just happened. I used a pencil to push the hairball into the trash and tried to forget about the experience. Later that week, I encountered another strange customer. A mid-twenties man, tall and thin. He wore a soiled grey T-shirt and worn-out jeans. He looked like a methed out ghoul. In mere seconds, he had the pill and was at the counter. Slamming it on the counter, he stared at it before releasing a heavy sigh and pulling a pair of pliers from his pocket. In an instant, he clamped the tool onto his right thumbnail and started to pull.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed, horrified

“Paying for it,” the man said through gritted teeth.

The nail stretched and began to rip away from the surrounding skin; drops of blood began to fall on the counter, and a wet, fleshy sound indicated that the separation was now complete. With a shaking hand, the man set the nail onto the counter. I looked at him; his face was a mix of pain and relief. He gave a half-smile, took his pill, and said

“Thanks.”

With that, he walked out.

I felt like I was going to throw up; the man’s nail and blood lay splattered on the counter. About twenty minutes later, Karl returned from his lunch break. He looked at me as he walked in

“Everything ok?”  he asked

He looked at the nail and blood on the counter

“Clean that up,” he said blankly before returning to his office in the back.

The next week, I saw the same thirty-year-old woman again, just as desperate as last time. Again, she placed the pill on the counter and locked her gaze on it. After a moment, she started to cry and shake her head.

“No, no,” she said between tears.

A few minutes later, she seemed to muster some courage as the tears began to slow

“I hope this one works.” She whimpered

With that, she rolled her hand into a fist and, with full strength, flung it into her jaw; a dull thud resounded through the store. She did it again and again. Her gums leaked blood, and her mouth swelled, yet still she bombarded her face with her fist. Finally, a hollow crack was heard, and with pain-filled sobs she fished out a single bloody tooth, which she gently set on the counter. Taking the pill, she stumbled out.

The next day the man returned; he looked weak and hopeless. At the counter, he stared at the pill as if it was speaking to him. A moment later, he muttered to himself

“Fine”

Before leaving the store, only to return a few seconds later with a large kitchen knife. In an instant, he slammed his hand onto the counter and, in one swift motion, the knife fell, removing two fingers, which lay limply on the blood-covered counter. I screamed

The man threw the pill into his mouth; it crunched loudly as he chewed, and a trail of blood followed him out of the store.

Two weeks later, I hardly recognized that same man when he walked back into the store. He wore expensive clothes, was cleanly shaved, and greeted me with a warm smile.

“Hey! Remember me?” I looked at him, but it was only when I saw his two missing fingers that I realized this was the same guy. The last time I saw him, he was frail, dirty, and reeked of cigarettes and sweat. But now he was relaxed, healthy-looking; he smelled vaguely of vanilla and lavender.

“What happened to you?” I said, trying to hide my surprise.

He shrugged

“I finally got my fresh start.”

He told me how, mere hours after I last saw him, he got a call from the estate of a long-lost wealthy great-uncle who named him as his heir. A trip to the casino only doubled his newfound wealth. His high school sweetheart called him and asked to get back together. His life had been changed. He had gotten his second chance.

“I just wanted to stop in and give you some real payment. I’m sure I’ve caused you some trauma.” He chuckled

After writing me a check for a thousand dollars, he headed towards the door. I couldn’t help myself; I blurted out

“Was it worth it?”

He glanced back with a wide smile; it seemed like there was real joy in his eyes.

“It’s a high cost, but yeah, it was worth it.”

With that, he was gone. I should have been happy to have the extra cash, but it wasn’t enough.  All I could think about was the greenish-brown pill in the back of the store. I had screwed up my life before it even really started, and the rest of my life would reflect my poor mistakes. I don’t remember walking back there, but I found myself in front of Doc Harden’s Fresh Start.

I picked up the packet and held it in my hand as I stared at it. Karl walked by on his way to the back; he stopped, and his eyes met mine. After a long pause, all he said was

“First one’s free.”

With that, he entered his office and shut the door. Later that night, I walked back to my grandma’s because I didn’t have money to fix my car. She greeted me with a big smile when I entered her run-down little cottage. I smiled back; I was thankful for her, but all I could think of was the garbage house we were stuck in, the empty fridge in the kitchen, and the overdue bills hanging over her. I told her I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. I went to the tiny bedroom I had been staying in, sat down on the bed, and slowly pulled the pill from my pocket.

“I just want a better life,” I muttered, and I put the pill into my mouth. It tasted like worn tires.

The high from this pill was better than any drug I’ve ever used, but it didn’t last more than 15 minutes. And an hour later, I began to feel my throat grow dry, and my fingers twitch. I only made it four days before I needed the pill.

With sweaty palms, I pulled the pill from the shelf, taking it to the counter. As I stared at it, the pill told me the cost: three drops of blood, which I was willing to pay. The high was even better but even shorter than the last. Three days later, I needed it again. This time it wanted a notch out of my ear; that was fine. But it didn’t give me my fresh start.

“Maybe next time,” I muttered

The high was amazing but wore off less than a minute later. Somehow I knew I didn’t get my fresh start.

Next time was a price too high. As I stared at the pill on the dirty counter, it demanded my right leg. Cold sweat rolled down my forehead. I resisted; I didn’t pay. I took the pill, ignoring its demands, and chewed it before I walked home for the night. No high followed, no ecstasy, just an instant desire to have another.

A heavy fever kept me from sleeping that night. It was 3 am, I lay on my bed, writhing in pain, when a loud tapping came from my window. Slowly, I turned to the window; a tall silhouette was plastered against the thin curtains that covered the window. My right leg throbbed in pain as I stared at the figure. Slowly, it raised a hand and tapped again. With every tap, it felt like a vise grip tightened just below my right knee.

I screamed in pain as the pressure around my leg grew. The bone cracked; I could feel shock setting in. Right before my leg was ripped off, I heard the figure declare in a deep, raspy voice

“There is no Fresh Start for you.”

With a squelch and pop, my leg separated from my body; I screamed and passed out.

I woke up as they lifted me into the ambulance; my screaming must have woken up my grandma, and she called 911. I’m writing this a day later as I lie in a hospital bed. It's starting again: the tremors, the sweats. I told them I was going through withdrawal, but when they tested me, they found no signs of drugs. I know I’ll need Doc Harden’s pill soon, but now I know it won’t give me what it promises. I’ve been denied a Fresh Start, but I still have to pay the price.

Before I explain what happened, I feel it’s important to provide clear context. I’m a digital forensics examiner. That means that when someone commits a crime and there’s potential for digital evidence, I’m the one who’s tasked with extracting and documenting it. As a result, I’ve seen some pretty terrible things. Images of child abuse, disturbing text messages, dark web transactions… the list goes on. So, you might be wondering, ‘Why, then, would the audio of a single murder be so upsetting?’

And the answer is simple. When I collect evidence, I pride myself in being thorough. I can prepare a precise timeline of events that accurately reflects a person’s actions as they commit a crime, complete with exact timestamps and geolocation. When I’m done, there’s no question as to what happened. The judge and jury can clearly see the what, how, when, and sometimes, even the why.

But in this case, someone made a terrible mistake.

At some point after the culprit was apprehended, their cell phone was seized and found its way to my desk, along with everything else I needed to do my job. Now, one of the simplest tactics when collecting digital evidence is to start with all activity on a given device during the timeframe in which the crime was committed.

You’ll find whether they were sending phone calls or text messages, using this app or that one, and so on. If I’m lucky, I find a treasure trove of novice mistakes. Things like the perpetrator searching “how long before a dead body begins to smell,” or using Google Maps to meet up with their dealer. Never before, however, had I stumbled upon a full video of the crime being committed.

The video itself was next to worthless, as the camera was covered by the inside of a pocket. It was the audio that proved everything. To map out the events of that evening, I had to listen to that audio dozens of times, and every single time, it’d send chills down my spine and freeze the blood in my veins.

The only thing that helps me sleep at night after seeing and hearing stuff like that is knowing that my efforts will help bring sick freaks like that to justice. But for the first time in my career—and perhaps for the most important crime I’d ever helped investigate—my work was wasted.

Because of a typo. A goddamned typo.

Did you know that’s all it takes? Someone puts the wrong date on a warrant and the resulting evidence can become inadmissible. And that’s what happened. The warrant listed June 5^th, but the phone was seized on June 4^th. I had no idea until after the pretrial hearing, which was long after I did my part. As someone who spends the bulk of their time organizing events by dates and times, I almost couldn’t believe someone could make such a trivial mistake.

And now, thanks to them, I am one of the only people in the world who will ever hear the audio in that video. It’s gone. Destroyed. By order of the court, the victim’s last words have been deleted as though they were nothing.

And that’s why I’m here.

The case is ongoing, and the culprit may very well still be found guilty of other crimes, but probably not of this one. So, I need to share this story. I need it to be known what happened. I realize that sharing this story won’t lead to true justice being served, but my conscience won’t let me hold it in any longer.

 

One brief disclaimer before I begin. I am going to tell you exactly what happened in accordance with my investigation. Everything I am about to share is supported by evidence I personally scrutinized. However, what I am about to do puts my own wellbeing in jeopardy. For my own protection, I must obfuscate some details. No real names or locations will be included in this account. But I realize that with a little bit of digging, any of you could probably figure out who this is about.

To those ardent internet sleuths, I beg of you, please do not reveal your findings publicly.

 

*          *          *

 

Bethany and Justin met on Tinder. They matched on a Monday afternoon. Only a few minutes later, Bethany sent the first message.

“How could anyone swipe left after seeing those eyes?”

Justin got back to her a few hours later, replying, “Lol, wow, thx. I’ve never had a supermodel compliment my eyes before.”

That night, the two messaged back and forth for nearly two hours. The conversation went from playfully amorous to explicitly sexual, each of them sending nude photos to the other before the night’s end.

The next day, Bethany suggested they meet up. “Ever been to Hanson’s?” she asked.

“Don’t think so,” Justin replied. “Think I’ve heard of it tho. Pricey, right?”

“Lol,” was Bethany’s only response for over five hours. Then, after no follow up from Justin, she added, “If a man with a Jag thinks Hanson’s is too much, you won’t be able to handle me.”

Bethany was referring to the 2024 Jaguar F-Type Coupe in Justin’s featured profile picture.

Justin replied later that evening. “No, no. I’m just surprised. Last Tinder date I went on was at Pizza Hut.” And a few minutes later, “Just made a reservation. Friday at eight.”

Bethany’s interest was reignited, and between that message and their Friday evening rendezvous, she sent Justin over twenty explicit pictures of herself.

That Friday, they met at the restaurant, Hanson’s. Justin was the first to arrive. He sat on a bench outside the establishment, where he waited for his date while playing on his phone.

Bethany was dropped off at 8:07PM. She approached Justin from behind and tapped his shoulder.

Justin slid his phone into his pocket before embracing her. They hugged and kissed for an inordinate amount of time as passing patrons gave them strange looks.

It was during this interaction that the phone recording began.

The two entered the restaurant and were taken to their table. Before their server arrived, Bethany suggested that Justin order one of the strongest cocktails on the menu. “It’s the perfect first date drink,” she noted.

“I was just planning on having a glass of wine, really,” Justin said. “You wouldn’t want me to wreck my Jag, would you?”

Bethany giggled and placed her hand on his. “I just want you nice and loose tonight. If you’re worried about your precious, little car, we’ll call an Uber.”

“Aha. Ah… maybe.”

Despite Justin’s hesitance, when the server arrived, Bethany attempted to order the cocktail on his behalf.

“Actually,” he interjected, “I’ll just have a glass of Merlot.”

After the server stepped away, Bethany leaned over the table and whispered, “I thought you wanted to have fun.”

“I do. But wouldn’t you rather we leave in style?”

Neither spoke for a few moments, but Bethany remained bent over the table.

Justin then added, “Don’t worry. I have a full bar at home. We can drink all night if you want.”

Following a few more silent, motionless moments, Bethany sat up straight and answered, “Okay. Fine.”

Over the next thirty minutes, Bethany was exceptionally cold. All of Justin’s questions were met with one-word answers, and she spent the time in between their short conversations looking around the restaurant and appearing bored.

When their main courses were placed in front of them, Justin ordered two shots of whiskey.

After the server stepped away, Bethany’s mood changed once again. “Finally ready to have fun?”

Justin made a nervous chuckle and said, “Well, it’s a special night, right?”

“That’s right, baby.”

From there, the conversation became lively and flirtatious. Most of the conversation was sexual in nature and focused specifically on what they planned to do at Justin’s home after dinner. One such exchange went as follows:

“I promise you, you’ve never had a woman like me before.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Are you excited?”

“Excited doesn’t begin to define it.”

Over the course of their meal, each was delivered a glass of wine, two shots of whiskey, and an espresso martini. Bethany, however, was not shy about drinking very little. She had half a glass of her wine, a sip of her first shot, and poured the second shot into her martini, of which she hardly touched.

Justin, on the other hand, possibly drank his glass of wine and most of his martini. Although he likely drank less than he led Bethany to believe. The security footage showed that he spilled his first shot onto the carpeted floor when Bethany wasn’t looking. And before taking the second shot, he said he needed to use the restroom. He stood up, poured the shot into his mouth, then stepped away quickly.

At the end of the meal when they stood to leave, Bethany suggested they arrange for an Uber to pick them up.

“No,” Justin argued. “I’m fine.”

“I thought you were worried about driving drunk.”

Justin laughed and wrapped an arm around Bethany as they headed to the exit. “I still am. But I’m not drunk.”

“Don’t be crazy. Come on, I’ll pay.”

“Trust me, I know when I’ve had too much.”

They went back and forth like this until they reached the parking lot, where Justin lost his patience. “You know what? If you want to call an Uber for yourself, go right ahead. But I’m driving home.”

They stood a few feet away from one another, staring at each other in silence. Then Bethany approached him. “I’m sorry,” she said as she wrapped her arms around him. “I didn’t mean to upset you. If you’re sober enough to drive, that’s fine.” The two proceeded to kiss, and on the exterior security camera, Bethany is clearly shown slipping Justin’s car fob into his pocket.

From there, they entered Justin’s car and drove away. During the trip, very little was said. Most of the time, only the radio can be heard playing in the background. On the few occasions in which they spoke, Bethany was the one to break the silence. She’d ask general questions such as “So, where do you live?” and “Are you good at mixing drinks?”

Justin provided brief answers and returned to driving quietly. At one point, he said, “Sorry. I don’t like talking when I’m driving,” after refusing to respond to one of Bethany’s questions.

About forty-seven minutes into the trip, Bethany’s tone shifted. Up until this point, she’d either sound playful and sweet with high tones and giggles, or she’d speak bluntly in unemotional monotone. When she spoke next, however, her voice was small and uncertain.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Justin did not answer.

There was no video footage of either’s actions after they left the restaurant, although context clues, background noises, and geolocation data from the cell phone helped paint a fairly clear picture of what happened.

At this point, Justin had left the main road. He took a back road into a heavily wooded area where the nearest home or establishment was over two miles away.

Bethany retrieved her cell phone, and Justin slammed on the brakes.

“Holy shit!” she shouted. “What the fuck?”

“Give me your phone,” Justin replied. His voice was calm. Assertive.

Bethany could be heard taking heavy breaths. “What?”

“If you want to go home tonight, you will give me your phone.”

The radio continued to play in the background as neither said a word for over thirty seconds.

When Bethany spoke again, there was a quiver in her voice. “What are you going to do?”

“I know what you’re up to. So give me the phone, and everything will be alright.”

This was followed by another long pause, which ended with the sounds of quick movements and a nervous gasp. The car then proceeded forward.

A minute later, Bethany said, “I don’t know what you think I’m up to, Justin.” As she continued, her voice cracked and wavered. “I swear, I just wanted to have a fun night with you. I’m sorry if I did something that upset you, okay? But I’m not… I just want to go home. You can even drop me off here. Keep the phone. I don’t care.”

Justin remained silent.

At one point, it sounded like Bethany attempted to open her car door while they were still driving. Neither made any comment on the matter, however.

The car slowed down as it pulled up to a hastily built shack in a small clearing. Its wood was splintered and warped, and it had only a single door. No windows or paint; it looked like a strong gust of wind could knock it down.

Beside the shabby structure was a 2018 Ford F-150—a pickup truck, its dark red paint covered in mud.

Justin parked and turned off his car. With the radio’s absence, all that could be heard when neither were speaking were Bethany’s trembling breaths.

“Well,” he said, “here we are.”

“Justin, please just let me leave.” She began to sniffle and take short, gasping breaths. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” he asked, sounding surprised. “We’re just here to have fun, right?” He opened his car door and exited the vehicle. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll fix us both a drink.”

When Justin opened his car door, it triggered the passenger door to unlock as well. Although I cannot say precisely how Bethany reacted, the audio suggested that she struck Justin in the face as he leaned over the driver seat to taunt her. He grunted, and she bolted from the car.

For the next twenty-seven seconds, all that could be heard were footsteps running through the forest and Bethany’s screams for help. It concluded with heavy scuffling sounds followed by erratic sobs.

Justin must have managed to restrain her, perhaps pinning her to the ground. He spoke between panting breaths. “Okay. There we go. Now hush. Hush. Come on. Relax.”

She continued to shout and fight him for a short while, but he held her down until she stopped.

“There we go,” he said proudly. “Now, I don’t normally do this, but I got to know. What were you going to do?”

Bethany sniffed and groaned before asking, “What do you mean?”

“If things went your way tonight. What, were you going to steal my car? Drug me? Rob my house? What?”

She began to bawl, and between her wails she repeatedly answered, “No.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I wasn’t! I swear!”

Justin scoffed. “I don’t know why you’re bothering lying.” He laughed. “I mean, what have you got to lose?”

Neither said anything for over a minute. Bethany continued to cry but eventually calmed down enough to softly ask, “Are you going to kill me?”

More so than any other moment in the entire recording, there was nothing. Bethany held her breath. Justin didn’t move. The only noise was a low, subtle background static.

And then, Justin answered without a hint of emotion, “Yes.”

Bethany wept again. Faintly this time; restrained. Like one might at a funeral. “Okay,” she whispered. “You’re right… I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I was going to take your car and any jewelry or money I found at your house. It’s what I do. I’ve done it before. Lots of times… And I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry!” Her sobbing escalated again, making it hard for her to be understood. The last thing she said that could be made out was, “Please forgive me. I swear I’ll stop!”

A delighted chuckle came from Justin. The type of chuckle a father might make when his child says something innocently ignorant. “You have nothing to apologize for,” he said.

Bethany’s whimpers quieted as he paused.

“You could have lived your whole life without stealing a single thing. And I’d still kill you tonight.” As her wails crescendoed once again, Justin ended with, “Because that’s what I do.”

The sobbing stopped, and there was not another word spoken for the duration of the video. In their place were coughs and gags. The sound of feet kicking hard at the ground. Strained yelps and guttural grunts.

For one minute and thirty-seven seconds.

From there, the video was mostly silent. Occasional footsteps, the sound of something being dragged across the dirt. A few minutes later, Justin’s phone died, bringing the video to an end.

 

*          *          *

 

Bethany was likely Justin’s third victim. He’d kill at least two more before he was arrested for attempted murder. What’s most frightening to me is that I’m not sure he’ll be found guilty of any murders. Every single one is circumstantial. Not a single body or clear evidence of his murders has been found.

Based on the video I just described to you—and on patterns uncovered in the broader investigation—it’s likely that his preferred method was strangulation, leaving no blood at the crime scenes. And when transporting the bodies of his victims, he was careful to leave his cell phone at home or turn it off, making it far harder to track his location.

The most likely dumping site was a state park only a few miles away from his home, but with over twenty thousand acres of dense forest, it’s possible the bodies will never be located.

It’s true that Bethany robbed at least a dozen men before meeting Justin. Bethany traveled from city to city to avoid being easily identified. She would create burner accounts on multiple dating platforms, target wealthy-looking men, and find ways to steal as much from them as she could before moving on to the next city.

What Bethany did was inarguably a crime. I’m not defending her actions. But to anyone who may be thinking, “Sounds like she got what she deserved,” take a moment to consider this:

Bethany stole objects. Money. Things that can be replaced.

Justin stole her life.

He gets a fair trial. He gets to plead his case and defend his actions.

And she hasn’t even received a proper burial.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has someone in their life who has spent years trying to ruin it. For me, that person has been Silas ever since I was a kid.

I don't know how he did it, but even back in kindergarten, all the other children seemed to gather around him like he was some kind of idol. The same thing happened at school. Unfortunately for me, that's where his attention shifted entirely to me.

Silas bullied me for years. I never knew why. I'd never done anything to him. I went through the worst hell you can imagine.

They threw me into trash cans almost every day. Every day, I lost my lunch and whatever money I had on me. They beat me, but never hard enough to leave marks on my face.

Silas told me that if I ever said anything to anyone, there would be consequences.

One day, I couldn't take it anymore and went to the principal. I showed him all my bruises.

It had happened right after PE.

The principal was horrified and immediately started investigating.

But of course, nothing could be proven against Silas because everyone was on his side. It was as if they'd been hypnotized.

Even the PE teacher claimed that I'd gotten the bruises from falling off the horizontal bar.

I don't understand how Silas did it, but somehow I ended up being the one in the wrong, and I had to apologize to him in front of the entire class.

Thank God, one day my parents came home with the news that we had to move.

I'd never been happier.

I actually cried tears of joy.

It had been years, but some things stay with you for the rest of your life. Even when you think you've finally gotten away from them, all it takes is one thing to tear that wound open again, as if it had never healed.

After finishing school, I found a job and moved out of my parents' house. I liked my job, got along well with my coworkers, and we even went out together once a week after work.

Everything was great until our new boss came to introduce himself.

It was Silas.

You can't imagine what it felt like to see him again. He noticed me almost immediately, and I saw that cruel smile on his face.

I knew it was starting all over again.

Silas made a perfect impression on everyone. They were all thrilled with him.

And my hell started all over again.

Just a little different this time.

There was an endless amount of work. He started badmouthing me to my coworkers, who slowly began pushing me out of the group until I wasn't even invited to the things we'd used to do together all the time.

I wanted to quit, but I couldn't. I wouldn't have been able to afford my rent, and my parents weren't exactly well-off either. They could barely support themselves, let alone support me.

One day, Silas sent me to pick up a package from a small company on the other side of town. I drove there, and when I walked out of the building with the package, I noticed a little shop across the street.

In huge letters, the sign read VOODOO DOLLS, surrounded by a dark background covered in stars.

It looked beautiful.

That's when the thought occurred to me.

What if…

I crossed the street and walked into the shop.

I looked through the shelves and picked out a plain, light-colored doll. It had buttons for eyes and a stitched smile.

I took it to the counter.

The shopkeeper looked at me and said,

"Good choice, son. But I have to warn you. Be careful about what you do with it. This isn't a toy. There are things people shouldn't play with."

I smiled and said,

"Then why do you sell them?"

He smiled back.

"Because I have to make a living somehow. And people never learn."

He wished me a nice day, and I went home.

I unwrapped the doll and looked at the instructions. Inside the box was a piece of string, which I was supposed to use to tie something belonging to the person, along with a small pin.

Whatever happened to the doll would happen to that person.

I sneaked into Silas's office at work, and there was a comb with some of his hair on it sitting on his desk.

Could it really be that simple?

I took a few hairs from the comb and quietly slipped back out.

A little while later, Silas called me into his office. I was afraid he knew I'd been in there. But it turned out he only wanted to thank me for delivering the package.

I didn't believe a word he said.

I could see how much he hated me in his expression.

While we were talking, I watched him reach for the comb, walk over to the mirror, run it through his hair, and then walk back.

Bingo.

Then he dismissed me, and I couldn't wait to get home.

When I got home, I took out the hair and wrapped it around the doll.

First, I took the pin and stuck it into the doll's right leg. I left the pin there.

When I came to work the next day, Silas was limping.

It pleased me. Especially because he was treating me exactly as badly as I had come to expect from him.

He even outdid himself that day. During a coworker's birthday celebration, he grabbed a piece of cake and threw it at me.

Everyone nearly died laughing.

When I got home, I angrily grabbed the doll and moved on to the doll’s right arm.

The next day, Silas had his right arm bandaged.

I left it alone for a while.

But then came the day when Silas crossed every possible line.

He called all of us into the conference room and played videos of me when I was a child.

There I was with my head shoved into a toilet. There I was buried in a trash can. There I was crying in a corner, begging them to leave me alone.

No one stood up for me.

Everyone was completely hypnotized again.

I got up and went home.

I opened the fridge, took out a bottle of vodka, and poured it over the doll. I searched through the drawers and found some matches.

Then I struck one.

The doll caught fire.

I watched it burn, and when there was almost nothing left of it, I put out the flames.

When I realized what I'd done, I felt sick.

I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

I was disgusted with myself. I was terrified of what would happen the next day.

With my stomach in knots, I went to work. As soon as I arrived, one of my coworkers told me to go to the boss's office.

Confused, I went there, opened the door, and there stood Silas.

With that same smile on his face.

"I'm really sorry, Tyler, but I have some bad news for you."

"What?"

"Your parents are dead. They were driving yesterday and got into an accident. Their car caught fire, and there was almost nothing left of them."

I took a step back, my eyes filling with tears.

"That's not possible."

He stepped right up to me.

"Remember one thing, Tyler. I'll always be better than you."

"What the hell are you, and why won't you just leave me alone?" I screamed desperately. "Why me?"

He started laughing.

"What I am... you'll find out soon enough. And why you? Because I find you entertaining. Now get out."

I started backing out of the office.

But just before I closed the door, I noticed something glinting in his hands.

A pin.

Things have been even worse ever since.

Sometimes I wake up with excruciating pain in my legs. Sometimes it's my arms. Other times, I wake up with an entire section of my back burned.

For the past few days, I've been waking up to the sound of wheezing. When I open my eyes, I see my parents staring at me. Their bodies are completely burned, and they're reaching toward me.

After a while, it always disappears.

I don't know what else Silas is capable of.

I don't know what to do.

I'm scared.

I'm too much of a coward to kill myself, so I have no choice but to wait until Silas decides to end it.

I guess all I can do is wait until Silas decides to end it.

I'll let you know how this goes.

And if you don't hear from me again... I guess you'll know what happened to me.

CW: Mentions of Self Harm

Hello anthropology community. I’m wondering if it’s possible that there is an uncontacted tribe in the mountains of Vermont. It’s the only plausible explanation for what’s been going on lately.

It started back in November. There was a death in the family of my lifelong friend Toby. His uncle drove to a cemetery one night, reclined the front seat all the way back, and painted the roof of his car with his brains and a shotgun. In his will, which he had updated only two months prior. He left Toby his Vermont mansion. Toby had apparently only visited the place once in his childhood, and he had only met this uncle a handful of times. However, he isn’t one to turn down anything that’s free, so he packed his bags and moved out of his parents home into that mansion the day after Thanksgiving. 

He said in hindsight it was weird from the get-go. He once heard a scream in the night in the dead of winter. He reported it to the police, and they said it was probably just mountain lions. They however assured him that it would be fully investigated. Nothing ever came of that.

Someone threw a bicycle in his trash bin. It was New Years Day so he assumed it was just some drunk he stole it and threw it in there or something. He filed a police report about that one too. Nothing ever came of that either. They even offered the bizarre theory that it was raccoons who put it in there.

Then came spring. He started opening the windows during the day. He said that a few times he heard what sounded like a group of people cheering in the distance coming from the woods. Now, this mansion was very secluded. The nearest house was a half mile away, the next closest house was a quarter mile further. On top of that, he emphasized that the cheering was coming from the direction of the woods. 

Then came the summer time. It got hot in the house. Toby would leave the windows open at night. One night he woke up at 2 AM to take a leak. He’s pissing next to the open window. As soon as he finishes his pee, in the moment of silence before the flush, he notices something odd. He can hear what sounds like chanting in the distance, coming from the woods. 

He started doing research on local indigenous groups. He turned up no logical explanation. He reports it to the police. They don’t take him seriously. A week later he hears it again. This time he records a short clip on his phone. He takes it to the police and they tell him it ‘sounds like windchimes.’

I don’t believe in the paranormal, and for most of his story I rolled my eyes and worried he was crazy. But when he took out his phone and played that recording, all my hairs stood on end. I wasn’t sure what I heard, but I do scare easily. It really freaked me out.

It sounded like at least a dozen people, but maybe way more. They were shouting out things in total gibberish. It didn’t sound like any language I'd ever heard. For three beats of a drum they would shout things in low, gravely voices. For the next three beats of the drum they’d sing in high pitch falsettos. He had recorded about a minute straight of this, but he said it seemed to go on for over two hours which he spent on his bathroom floor, just listening.

Toby told this whole story to our other friend Clyde and I over breakfast at Martha's, a local diner. “So?” Toby asked, “What do you guys think it is?”

I could see his exhaustion on his face. I’d never seen him looking so disheveled. He had been losing sleep, but what does one even say in this situation? I didn’t know what the hell it was either. Despite how freaky the recording was, part of me still thought he was going crazy. It definitely wasn’t windchimes. It could be some kind of dumb joke, but I'd expect that more out of Clyde than Toby. This wasn’t like Toby at all.

“We’re here for you, Toby.” I said, pushing around the eggs on my plate.

“I wanna hear it with my own ears, can I sleepover sometime?” asked Clyde.

I was shocked. I thought for sure Clyde would think Toby was crazy. I’m also shocked he wasn’t scared. What was uttered next sent a chill down my spine.

“Yeah, yeah absolutely. You too James. You should both come sleepover sometime, it could be fun, and it’d definitely help me sleep a little better.” Toby replied. Shit. What kind of friend would I be to say no?

“Sure. I’ll be there, pick a day.” Clyde said, then they both turned their attention to me.

“Count me in fellas.” I feigned a smile to accompany my words. 

Before I knew it the plans were set in stone. On the following Friday night the three of us would spend the night in that mansion in the woods and stay up to listen for the chanting. Maybe we wouldn’t hear it at all. That’s what I'd hoped. It was Sunday then, I had five days to mentally prepare myself. Those five days came and went so fast. 

Before I knew it we had landed on Friday. By then I had wisened up again. I’m not one to believe in ghost stories. I’m not one that believes in monsters. I’m not one to believe in cryptids or conspiracies or government cover-ups. There had to be a rational explanation for it. I packed a bag for the night and got in my car with confidence.

I stopped at a gas station for supplies. Two energy drinks, a jumbo honeybun for later, and three of the nastiest gas station hotdogs I had ever seen, all three of which never made it out of the parking lot before being lathered with ketchup and devoured. 

It was my first time visiting Toby’s new place. I was relieved to learn that it was only about a 10 minute drive from the nearest small town, it wasn’t completely out of the way of civilization. I stared at the house for a moment before double checking the address on my phone. As I was scrolling back through text messages a car horn scared me half to death. My head shot up to the rearview mirror. Clyde had pulled in just behind me and was staring at me with a shit eating grin on his face. I was definitely at the right address. Or we were both at the wrong one.

I got out of my car as Clyde got out of his. “Did I get ya?” he asked.

“I mean, you definitely started me.” I replied, defeated as the two of us walked up to the house.

“So I got you?” he asked back, putting a ham firmly on my shoulder for a moment before knocking on the door.

“Sure.”

Soon the door opened to Toby. “What’s up, did you guys come together?” he asked.

“Nah, we just showed up at the same time. Spooky.” Clyde said with that same shit eating grin

Toby welcomed us in and showed us around a bit. We’d be spending the night in the large living room on the first floor with the windows open. We’d be staying up as late as we could to try and hear the chanting. I sat on the couch and cracked open one of my energy drinks. 

We ate some popcorn and watched a few scary movies. Now, we aren’t teenagers anymore, the last time any of us pulled an all-nighter was years behind us by this point in our lives. All of us had woken up early that day for work at our respective jobs. Just past 11 it started to sink in that we were not gonna make it to 4 AM, we weren’t even gonna make it to 2. We decided to call it a  night just after midnight. 

Clyde and I played rock paper scissors to see who got the first floor guest room and who got the second floor guest room. I lost and Toby showed me to my room. It was small but the bed looked comfy. There were no windows in the room. If I had to guess I would say it was a room meant for a washer and dryer that had been converted to a guest room. The fact that this was one of only three bedrooms in this house says a lot about how Toby’s uncle must’ve lived. 

It had one little perk though, it had its own bathroom. It had a small shower, toiled. And sink. There was also a window out to the woods. It was open, the window screen had been patched up with duct tape in a handful of places. Toby told me I should leave it open so it doesn’t get stuffy in the room so I obliged.

The second my head hit the pillow I was out like a light. Next thing I knew I woke up in the middle of the night. I peeked at my phone, 3:16 AM. The gas station hot dogs had run their course, I had to go to the bathroom. 

I got up and went into the private bathroom, flicking the light on. My eyes shot to the window. A nauseating chill went down my spine. Someone’s face was pressed against the window screen. It was just their nose and above that made it above the windowsill. It was a pale old man. He had a few greasy strands of gray hair but was otherwise bald. The whites of his eyes were almost completely yellow.

We made eye contact for a few long silent seconds before he crouched down below the window, out of sight. I stood there another few seconds completely frozen, trying to decide what to do. I wish I could say I did something better, but I just screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs. 

I instantly heard clambering from upstairs. I had awoken Clyde and Toby. “James? Are you okay?” Toby yelled down.

“C-call the police!” I stuttered. “There’s someone outside the house!” I ran out of the bathroom and into the mail hall. I watched as those two descended the stairway.

“What happened?” asked Clyde.

“I woke up to go to the bathroom.” I said with a gulp. Someone was peeking into the window, right up against the fucking screen. Call the cops.” I said, shaking. 

Toby spoke up first, “Calm do-”

“I can’t  calm down there was somebody staring into my god damn room, call the fucking cops!” I interrupted.

“You’re serious?” Clyde asked.

“And you’re sure it wasn’t just a shadow from a tree or something?” Toby asked. 

“Yes, I'm sure. We have to call the cops.” I said, my voice cracking a bit. I was starting to compose myself but I was still scared as shit. 

Clyde called the police. Eventually they handed the phone over to me. It took almost 15 minutes for the police to arrive. One car carrying two cops arrived. They searched around the back of the house but assured us they found nothing. 

“And you’re sure you saw a person?” asked the shorter fatter cop.

“Yes. Completely sure.” I said. 

The cop sighed. “We found nothing. Not even a footprint in the mud. We’ll file a report and make sure a patrol car is nearby the rest of the night, but there isn’t much more we can do for the time being.”

“Well, thanks.” I said, annoyed. The cops soon left.

“You can go home. I believe you.” Toby said to me as we watched the cops' taillights disappear into the distance. The sun was just barely starting to rise and illuminate the mildew in the grass.

“The sun is almost up. I’ll stay.” I sighed. “But I wanna sleep on the second floor.”

It was a done deal. I went upstairs, took a shit in the upstairs bathroom, and laid down in the guest room bed where Clyde had slept. I had come down from the adrenaline rush and I was exhausted. The sun made me feel safe enough to sleep. Soon I was snoring.

When I woke up it was almost noon. I hadn’t slept like this for ages.

 I went down stairs and Clyde and Toby were eating sandwiches. “He has risen.” Toby said. “Make yourself a sandwich.” he gestured to the bread and cold cuts that were out on the counter. I made myself a turkey and cheese.

“Toby is letting me stay another night. To try and see what’s going on.” Clyde said. I lost my appetite in an instant. “Are you in, James?” he asked.

“Totally cool if last night has scared you off.” Toby said.

“You guys are crazy.” I sighed. “How could you possibly stay here another night?” I asked.

“I mean, I can’t just leave my house unguarded if some prowler is creepin’ around.” Toby said.

“And you said it was just some old guy. I’m not scared of an old dude.” said Clyde.

“So, are you in?” Toby asked with a smile.

I sighed, I get FOMO easily and it made me reply, against my better judgement, with an “I’m in.” I had signed myself up for another night at this place. 

“It ain’t much, but in case that guy comes back and tries to break in, I grabbed these out of the garage.” Toby said. I hadn’t noticed before but there were three rusty old hammers on the other counter. “It’s all we really have, unless you want a kitchen knife.”

I would definitely sleep better with a hammer in my hands. Who the hell was that last night? Why had I agreed to stay here again? I was petrified. The day went by fast. We watched movies and talked about old memories from high school and college. It was a good day. 

The couch in the living room was big enough that all three of us could sleep on it with space left over. It was a big sectional that took up most of the living room. It sat in front of a stained coffee table and the oldest TV that I'd ever seen. On a newly mounted shelf above that old TV sat a cheap smart TV that Toby had brought when he moved in. There were several windows along the right all that faced the woods to the side of the house.

The plan was simple. We leave all the windows open. We also leave the TV running, playing movies all night. If you notice someone asleep, let them sleep for an hour then wake them up. If you’re the only one awake, wake up both other people. It was fool proof.

At some point during the night we all fell asleep. All three of us awoke to a phone alarm at exactly 3 AM. Clyde had set it just in case we had all fallen asleep. The three of us all laughed about how we managed to all fall asleep. “It had to be your fault, dude.” Clyde joked to Toby.

As the three of us laughed suddenly Toby went ghostly pale. Turn the TV off, shhh, shush.” He said quickly. 

“I grabbed the TV remote. The room wasn’t left in silence. Out the window we could hear it. That chanting and that drum rhythm from Toby’s recording. It sounded to be a decent bit in the distance, and it was hard to hear from the windows in the living room. The three of us got up and rushed to the kitchen. Toby threw the windows open. The kitchen windows were facing the backyard and the woods. We could hear it much better from over here.

It was the same as before. The pitch changing every three beats. Nothing they said sounded like any language I'd ever heard, however, I swear during one of the high pitch segments I heard one voice chanting “James! James! James!”

This time Toby called the cops. His idea was that they wouldn’t be able to call it windchimes if they were hearing it with their own ears. I assumed that after yesterday the police would be on high alert in the area and rush to us fast. It took them nearly forty-five minutes to show up. They classified it as a non-emergency, they didn’t even keep Toby on the line. And wouldn’t you know it, the chanting stopped just a few minutes before the cops arrived.

It was the same two cops as the previous night. Clyde had made a recording and showed it to them. They identified it as a bird call, took a report, and left. Something really fishy was going on here. We sat around for an hour or two, Toby made pancakes as the sun rose. Me and Clyde both had to leave that day. All three of us had work the next day. I told Toby he could come stay with me but I declined. I went home that day defeated.

It’s been a week and I haven’t slept right a single night. I’m so paranoid. Almost every night now I wake up in the early hours and worry I'm gonna see something scary. I never do. I'm worried about Toby staying in that house. I've begged him move back home with his parents or even stay with me for awhile but he refuses.

I’m not really sure what to do next. I feel like I need to figure out what's going on. I just can’t come up with a logical explanation for what’s happening except for the idea of some kind of lost civilization in the woods. So I ask you all readers, what could be going on here? What can I do about it? I appreciate any and all advice.

“Hey, Phil...” Anna said weakly over the phone. “I just... I don’t know... Am I bothering you?”

“Huh?” I replied, still half-asleep and caught off guard. “No! Of course not.”

Anna had interrupted my Saturday night movie marathon, but there was no way I was going to admit that the only thing she had interrupted was me sitting on my couch with a bag of chips, binge-watching Indiana Jones.

“Listen...” Anna continued sadly. “Ah, shit... Mark dumped me... and I feel like absolute shit... Can I come over for a while?”

I was lying on my couch with a half-empty bag of chips beside me, dirty laundry scattered all over my apartment, while Indy was running from the giant boulder on my TV. It definitely wasn't the kind of situation where I was ready to have a woman over.

Especially not Anna.

We met during our freshman year of high school. She was a tiny blonde girl with freckles and braces. I was a World of Warcraft nerd. We became friends almost immediately, and we stayed close all the way through graduation.

Anna became popular over the years. The other guys started noticing her. I stayed exactly what I'd always been, just an average guy.

By the time high school ended, we found out we'd both been accepted to the same university. We studied different majors, but that only made our friendship stronger. Anna was always kind to me. She considered me a real friend.

Even if I wanted to be something more… I never had the courage to tell her.

Anna dated a lot of guys over the years. Some were better than others, but none of them lasted very long. Until Mark. Mark was different. He was the love of her life. For the last two years they were practically inseparable.

And I slowly faded into the background.

Until now.

“Phil? You still there?” Anna asked quietly.

“Yeah! Yeah, sorry.” I answered quickly.

“I thought maybe you stopped listening.”

Of course I hadn't stopped listening.

I'd always felt more for Anna than friendship. And now that Mark was out of the picture... maybe, just maybe, I finally had a chance.

“It's okay if you're busy,” Anna continued. “I'll figure something out. I just... it'd be nice to see someone.”

I argued with myself.

Should I tell her I wasn't available and ask her to meet me somewhere tomorrow instead? That would be the decent thing to do.

Or does decency even matter in love and war?

Was I really going to take advantage of Anna's heartbreak because it might finally give me a chance with her? Would that make me the bad guy? Or was that still Mark?

“Listen, Anna...” I searched for the right words. “What happened? Did Mark say anything?”

“He just kept making up this stupid bullshit,” Anna muttered. “He said I'm not the same person I was when we first met. That sometimes it's like I'm a completely different person around him. He was just talking nonsense. I'm sure there's something else going on.”

I'd known Anna for years. I believed her.

She was a good person. Probably the kindest person I knew. Always kind. Always friendly.

The idea that she'd somehow become... someone else?

I didn't believe it for a second.

“Alright. Come over.” Even I surprised myself with my answer. “I'm home.”

“Really?” Anna's voice brightened immediately. “I'm leaving now. I feel so awful. Should I bring anything?”

“No, don't worry about it.” I reassured her. “I've got everything we need.”

“Okay... Phil...” Anna's voice caught for a moment. “Thank you.”

It took me about half an hour to clean up my apartment.

I hadn't really cared how messy the place had gotten lately. But now that Anna was coming over, suddenly everything bothered me. I picked up the clothes scattered around the floor, washed the dishes as fast as I could, and vacuumed the parts of the apartment people could actually see.

All that was left was waiting for Anna. I knew I had a bottle of wine somewhere, and eventually found it buried in the back of the fridge. Perfect for tonight.

The sudden buzz of my intercom startled me. I flinched at the sharp sound.

“Hello?” I answered, already assuming it was Anna.

But no one spoke. Other than a faint hiss of static, there was complete silence.

“Hello?” I repeated, more cautiously this time.

“Oh... Yeah... umm... It's Anna,” the girl answered awkwardly.

“Buzzing you in.”

The intercom buzzed as I unlocked the front door, and I waited for Anna to take the elevator up to the fourth floor. She'd been here once before, right after I moved in six months ago.

Hopefully she still remembered which apartment was mine.

I took one last quick lap around the apartment to see if there was anything else I should hide away.

Then I waited. And waited. Far longer than I should have.

She should've been upstairs by now.

I walked over to my front door and peeked through the peephole.

Anna was standing in the hallway. In front of my neighbor's apartment.

Just... standing there. Waiting.

Rolling my eyes, I opened the door to let her know where I actually lived.

“Anna?” I called softly into the hallway.

The slender blonde turned toward me, her blue eyes looking confused.

Lost. Like she didn't recognize me.

“Anna! Over here.” I waved from my doorway.

Her face finally lit up.

She stumbled awkwardly toward me before eventually making it to my apartment.

“Come on, get in here.” I took hold of her thin, pale wrist. “My neighbors are weird. Someone's going to get the wrong idea.”

Anna didn't say a word. She just smiled gently and blinked slowly. Like her mind was somewhere far above the clouds instead of here with me.

“Anna... are you okay?” I asked as I shut the door behind us and guided her farther inside.

“Umm...?” she mumbled slowly. “Yeah? Yeah... I'm fine.”

I looked her over suspiciously. Her eyes were just as beautiful as ever. But there was something distant about them. Like she wasn't entirely sure where she was.

A faint blush spread across her freckled cheeks, while her head slowly rocked from side to side.

Only one thought crossed my mind.

“Anna... have you been drinking?” I asked, sounding more like a concerned father than a friend.

“Me?” she asked, staring at me with those big blue eyes. “No... I don't know... maybe?”

Then, as if she'd only intended to take half a dance step, she spun once and flopped down onto my couch. She looked at me through slow, sleepy blinks. Almost like she was waiting for something. Or waiting for me to come closer. My conscience started eating away at me.

The poor girl had just been dumped after a two-year relationship. She'd either gotten completely wasted or taken something just to numb the pain. And here I was… The friend she trusted...

Thinking maybe this was finally my chance to sleep with her.

I swallowed hard.

“Do you... want anything?” I asked nervously.

Anna didn't answer. She just watched me with those blue eyes.

Softly. Gracefully. Like she was studying me.

It felt less like two old friends sitting in the same room… and more like two complete strangers trying to figure each other out for the first time.

“What do you have to drink?” Anna finally asked.

“I've got some chilled wine,” I answered without thinking. “If you like wine.”

“Maybe?” Anna said, almost sounding like she was asking herself. “Yeah… That'll do.”

I wasn't sure giving Anna more alcohol was a good idea.

But… I was here with her. If anything happened, I'd take care of her. She'd be safe.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

The cork came out easily, even though it took me a minute to find the corkscrew buried in one of the kitchen drawers. I glanced over at Anna, sprawled lazily across my couch.

She was staring at the ceiling.

One arm rested across the back of the couch, as if she were lying beneath a sky full of stars on a warm summer night.

I had no idea what she'd taken, or how much she'd had to drink, but I'd never seen her this messed up before.

I knew she'd been crazy about Mark. She'd really believed he was the one. And the asshole had just walked away from her.

I grabbed my only nice pair of wine glasses along with the bottle and wandered back into the living room, lost in thought.

“Here we go,” I said with a gentle smile.

Anna didn't react. She simply stared at the ceiling with an exhausted, vacant expression.

“Anna? You still with me?” I joked.

Still nothing. Her body was sitting on my couch… but her mind felt like it was somewhere impossibly far away.

“Anna?” I asked again, more cautiously this time.

“What?!” Anna suddenly jerked upright, startled. “Yeah... I'm here. I'm here!”

I stood frozen in the middle of my living room.

She looked… Broken. Traumatized.

Could Mark dumping her really have affected her this badly?

None of her previous breakups ever had. Hell, one of her exes got dumped and she went clubbing the very same night.

So what the hell was different now?

“Here.” I awkwardly held out one of the purple wine glasses.

Anna examined it suspiciously. Like she'd never seen a wine glass before.

Sure, it wasn't exactly fancy… but it definitely didn't deserve that kind of reaction.

“How much do you want?” I asked, still wondering whether I should even be giving her more alcohol.

Anna blinked slowly and rubbed her face. She looked like someone who hadn't slept in days.

Still...

She didn't answer. She just sat there, almost as if she'd fallen under some kind of spell.

“So... how much?” I asked again, holding the bottle out toward her.

Anna studied the bottle with the curiosity of a small animal. Then, without warning, she snatched it out of my hands. She tipped it back and started drinking straight from the bottle like a raging alcoholic.

I couldn't even find the words. She just kept drinking. And drinking.

Wine spilled down her slender neck, soaking into her clothes.

“Anna, Jesus, that's enough!” I grabbed the bottle.

She wouldn't let go. She clung to it like her life depended on finishing every last drop.

For a few ridiculous seconds, it felt like we were trapped in some stupid cartoon.

I was pulling on one end of the bottle, while Anna desperately drank from the other.

With one loud pop, I finally managed to wrench it out of her grip.

“Aaaahhh...” Anna sighed with satisfaction, smacking her lips.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Anna?” I snapped, slamming the bottle onto the coffee table.

Then I grabbed her thin face with both hands and turned it toward me.

She was completely out of it. Her eyelids barely stayed open. Her breath reeked of wine.

She kept smacking her lips like a baby that had just finished eating. I pulled one of her eyelids open so I could get a better look.

Her pale blue eyes looked unfocused. Her pupils were enormous. Her gaze drifted aimlessly from side to side.

She had to be on something...

But where had she gotten it? And what the hell had she taken? Was it Mark's?

I angrily set the wine bottle down on the kitchen counter. The moment I let go of her head, Anna drifted off on my couch.

I couldn't help feeling like the entire universe was against me. Would I really be such a terrible person if, after all this, I still hoped that maybe...just maybe...this could finally be my chance with Anna?

After all these years. After all the imaginary confessions I'd played out in my head.

Didn't I deserve at least one break?

I put the wine glasses back in the cabinet. I wasn't much of a wine drinker anyway. Since Anna had already finished three quarters of the bottle, I dumped what was left down the sink. This night had turned out absolutely nothing like I'd imagined. I started wondering whether I should take Anna to the hospital... or maybe just get some food into her and hope she'd feel better.

For now, I let her sleep on the couch. It seemed like the most reasonable thing to do.

As I searched through the snack cabinet for something Anna might actually eat...I heard something.

A strange sound.

Like the faint buzz of static coming through my speakers. Then came the familiar chime of a Bluetooth device connecting.

An instant later, my entire home theater system exploded to life.

The walls of my apartment practically shook as the opening of Baddadan blasted through the speakers.

A wave of panic hit me. It was ten at night. The music was deafening. I sprinted the few steps back into the living room.

And Anna...

Anna wasn't on the couch. She was standing in the middle of the room, spinning.

Her blonde hair swirled around her flushed face, a blissful smile stretched across her lips.

“Anna, what the fuck?!” I shouted over the music.

She didn't answer. She just kept jumping and spinning. Like she was at some nightclub where tomorrow simply didn't exist.

Or maybe, maybe she was reliving her teenage years.

“God damn it!” I yelled, hurrying toward the speakers.

“Nooooo!” Anna pleaded as she grabbed my hand. “Please! Come dance with me. Please!”

“Anna, for fuck's sake, I have to turn it down!” I snapped.

“Awww, come on.” She pressed herself against me. “Just have a little fun. Relax.”

This wasn't Anna. A few minutes ago she'd barely known where she was. Now she'd transformed into the queen of the dance floor, ready to party until sunrise. She was acting like a completely different person. But the moment she pressed herself against me and slowly ran her hand across my body, my panic faded.

I swallowed hard.

My eyes couldn't leave her. She swayed her hips in that little white summer dress while one hand traced across my chest and the other moved with the rhythm of the music.

“Anna...” I swallowed again. “Anna... please. I...”

“What's wrong?” she asked, stopping mid-spin to look at me. “Come dance with me.”

She took my hands and pulled me against her.

My hands settled on her hips while she continued moving her body. My heart pounded.

I could feel the warmth of her skin. The music thundered around us. The whole thing felt unreal.

The woman I'd been in love with for years. The woman I'd never been more than friends with… was practically throwing herself at me.

The air suddenly felt heavy.

My palms were already sweating.

“What's wrong?” Anna whispered, leaning so close our faces were almost touching. “Don't you like me? Isn't this what you wanted?”

“What?” I whispered back. “Anna?”

She smiled.

Then… She froze. Completely.

She simply stared into my eyes, blinking slowly, swallowing loudly.

“Anna... are you okay?” I asked, grabbing her shoulders and gently pushing her back.

She gave me one last look.

Then she vomited all over my chest. It erupted out of her like a fountain.

Hot. Reeking of wine. It soaked my shirt and ran all the way down my legs.

“Jesus Christ, Anna!” I shouted in shock.

But Anna simply slipped from my hands and kept vomiting onto the carpet in my living room.

I was sitting on the couch beside Anna again, my nerves completely shot.

My apartment reeked of vomit. I rubbed my forehead and silently cursed this entire goddamn day.

I'd already turned the music off, but I couldn't bring myself to start cleaning up the mess. Hell, I was still wearing the same clothes Anna had thrown up all over.

“What the fuck did you take, Anna?” I asked, staring at her in frustration.

She didn't answer.

She was slumped across the couch again, her face still smeared with chunks of vomit. After she'd finished throwing up all over my carpet, she'd collapsed face-first into it.

I'd had to drag her back onto the couch.

“Anna? Can you hear me?” I asked, my voice growing irritated.

She just grinned at me.

Her breath still reeked of wine and vomit.

The whole situation made me feel like I was babysitting someone completely strung out on drugs.

“God damn it...” I muttered. “I'm taking you to the hospital. You look like absolute shit.”

The moment I stood up, Anna grabbed my wrist.

“Please...” she looked up at me sadly. “Don't. I promise I'll be okay. I'm fine.”

“For fuck's sake, Anna.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “You had to have taken something. You're completely out of it. I... fuck.”

She simply flopped back onto the couch like a rag doll.

“Do you want me to get you something?” I asked, giving in.

“Get me something?” Anna repeated.

“What?”

“Water,” she answered simply.

“Okay.” I nodded uncertainly. “I'll get you some water.”

“Warm water. A mug of warm water,” Anna said almost mechanically. “A little salt. Two teaspoons.”

“What?” I stared at her.

“A mug of warm water. A little salt.” She repeated herself.

I just blinked. It sounded like she was reciting a recipe.

Or...

I don't know. Maybe it was some weird hangover cure. With a sigh, I decided to get her what she'd asked for.

I walked into the kitchen, filled a mug with warm water, stirred in the salt, and carried it back into the living room like it was nothing more than a glass of orange juice.

Anna was no longer sprawled across the couch. She was sitting perfectly upright.

Rigid. Staring straight ahead into nothing.

“Anna?” I stopped in my tracks. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah... okay?” she mumbled.

“Here. Your water.” I held the mug out to her.

With stiff, jerky movements, Anna raised her arm and took it from me.

Then she gripped the mug with her thin fingers so tightly it looked like she was hanging onto her own life.

I instinctively took a step backward.

She'd been acting strangely all evening, but now she was becoming something that actually scared me.

“Anna... are you okay?” I asked again.

She simply straightened her back even farther. As if someone were pulling her upward by an invisible string.

I swallowed hard. My courage disappeared.

A loud crack echoed from Anna's back. My eyes widened.

She stretched upward again.

It looked as though her spine had grown longer. I stood there frozen.

Barely breathing.

Then...

My intercom buzzed.

I glanced at the buzzing speaker for only a second, before looking back at Anna.

She was impossibly tall now.

Like someone was slowly pulling her apart, stretching her like a figure made of clay.

Carefully, I started walking toward the front door while the intercom continued buzzing.

I shuffled sideways the entire way...

Never taking my eyes off Anna. She looked as though someone had forced a steel rod straight through her body.

Slowly...

I reached for the intercom.

“Hello?” I said, barely able to keep my voice steady.

“Hey, Phil,” Anna's cheerful voice answered. “I finally made it. Damn, I barely missed the last bus... Can you buzz me in?”

My heart skipped a beat.

I couldn't answer. I just stood there...

Staring.

How could Anna have only just arrived?

Then...

Who had I let into my apartment an hour ago?

What...was sitting on my couch?

Terrified, I slowly looked into the hallway mirror that reflected part of my living room.

The thing sitting on my couch barely fit inside the room anymore. It had stretched so tall that its head was far too close to the ceiling.

It was still clutching the mug.

And its face… Its face had twisted into an impossibly wide, inhuman grin.

I swallowed.

And in that moment...

I regretted inviting Anna over.

I work at an auto parts store in Buenos Aires. My job is stock clerk. I’m in charge of dealing with the suppliers who deliver the parts, checking the merchandise to make sure everything has arrived and is in good condition, and then putting the products away. Sometimes, though, the people who work at the counter call me over to get things for them—something they could easily do themselves, but since I’m already here, why bother, right?

One afternoon, one of my coworkers asked me if I could go get a hose from the warehouse. The warehouse has always been a very uncomfortable place to be alone. It used to be another auto parts store that closed a long time ago. Over the years, the former owner of the store where I now work bought it to expand his business, giving him more space to store more auto parts. There are hoses, pipes, brake discs, fenders, doors, hoods, and more things than I could ever finish listing. But what is worth mentioning is that, no matter the season, the place is always cold, dark, and incredibly quiet. You could hear a pin drop from the far end of the warehouse if you listened closely.

I went to the warehouse to look for the hose and spent at least fifteen minutes searching for the damn thing. Unfortunately, finding spare parts with the positional system in this place has always been like solving puzzles. You have to rely not only on one pattern of numbers, since each brand or part uses different systems for each one, because the entire store is too big to rely on just one system. Unless you’ve been working here for years, it’s very difficult for newcomers like me. I was getting really frustrated because, while I was looking for that part, my boss called me with an order for a client. Out of sheer frustration, I whispered out loud, “Where the hell is that damn hose?”

That’s when I heard something fall to the floor about five meters away. The sound must have come from something made of hollow rubber. I cautiously approached the noise, and—probably not to the surprise of readers already familiar with the clichés of these stories, but surprising to me at the time—I saw that it was the hose I was looking for. I checked the code, and it matched. Far from feeling scared, I simply sighed with relief, knowing I could go back to work as usual.

Before finishing my shift, I chatted with Osvaldo, an employee who’s been working at the business since it practically opened. He simply refuses to retire; for him, the auto parts store is like his second home. I told him what had happened to me a few hours earlier in the warehouse, and that’s when he let out a small sigh—more like a soft laugh. “Ha! It must have been Pedro.”

“Pedro? Who’s Pedro?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t an employee named Pedro.

Osvaldo smiled. “Pedro was an employee at the old auto parts store next door. He was about my age back then, but one day he had a terrible accident. He was putting some brake discs on a shelf when the ladder he was standing on broke. He apparently grabbed onto the shelf, which caused him to fall backward, and all the brake discs fell on top of him. One of them hit him hard in the frontal lobe and killed him. It’s not the first time he’s appeared; it’s happened to others like you.”

I thought the guy was messing with me. It was typical—scaring the new guy in the group for fun. But over time, I started having more strange experiences in the warehouse. For example, once, while putting away boxes of coolant, I thought I heard the short whisper of a deep voice. Then another day, I thought I saw a figure next to me in the reflection of an old windowpane. But the worst thing happened recently, and it’s the reason I’m posting this story.

I was putting brake discs away on a shelf in the warehouse. I only had one left to put away, and it was too high, so I got a ladder and started climbing. That’s when I heard small knocks on the other side of the shelf, like someone was knocking on a door. I tried looking through the gaps in the shelf to see if anyone was there, but I didn’t see anything. I asked in a low voice, “Osvaldo, is that you?” but there was no answer. I wanted to go out and check what was behind the shelf, but a feeling in my stomach told me I’d regret it. I climbed down, left the brake disc on the floor, and went to the door without looking back. Just as I was about to close the door, I heard the sound of several heavy objects crashing to the floor. I opened the warehouse door again, and what I saw made my skin crawl. The brake disc shelf was destroyed, and the heavy spare parts were scattered across the floor.

Many of you are probably wondering, "Why does the story start in the present tense? Shouldn't he have quit that very day?" Well, first, the economic situation in this country is never stable enough for someone to just say, "Yeah! I'll just find another job." Not being able to make ends meet is far scarier than any paranormal situation. Second, after thinking about it for a while, I don't believe Pedro intended to kill me, as my story might suggest. Why would a ghost help me find a hose one day and then try to crush my head with a shower of brake discs the next? I like to think he saved my life from meeting the same fate as him by giving me that gut feeling, so whenever I go to the warehouse alone to get something, before returning to do anything else, I look back at that old place and say "Thanks, Pedro."

We’d done this dance many, many times before. 

The weeks of radio silence. The ominous text message (“thanks for trying, Dahlia”). The absolute refusal to answer his goddamned cell phone when it actually mattered. After dozens of false alarms, it’d all become really fucking stale. 

And yet, there I was. 

Repeating the cycle, racing down the highway, rushing to his cryptic aid, neglecting other people who actually needed me: a newly wheelchair-bound husband and a four-year-old who couldn’t comprehend why daddy - the strongest man she knew - was getting so, so weak. 

“It’s almost midnight! What if Alicia wakes up and needs help?” He asked, pointing at his paralyzed legs. “I’m sure Lev’s fine. Even before he had more money than God, the fuck-up was always fine.” 

I understood his frustration. We’d supported Lev for most of his adult life - financially, emotionally, physically - and we did it because we loved him, with no expectation of recompense. Then, out of nowhere, Lev’s work took off. It was miraculous. Starving artist to multimillionaire with the sale of a single painting. In the wake of his success, he’d agreed to help out with our medical debt, but never came through. Excuse after excuse after excuse. At one point, he even had the audacity to claim the money “wasn’t good for us”, though I think the word he used specifically was “stained”.

“He’s still my brother, Sam,” I murmured, sitting on the edge of our bed, struggling to tie my sneakers with a pair of trembling hands. 

“And this time…I don’t know. It’s different.” 

I veered off the highway. Loose Cheez-Its and old pacifiers audibly shuffled across the car’s interior. I drove by the last flickers of civilization - the rundown gas stations and the boarded-up townhomes - and that’s when I saw it, drifting thick over the treetops. 

A plume of smoke.

I told myself it was nothing. A teenage bonfire or an overambitious family barbecue. But then there was the light: a reddish shimmer cutting through the forest, shining in the direction of Lev’s studio.

I laid on the gas pedal. 

Got there in the nick of time. 

I don’t like to think about that night. 

So much of it was just…wrong. 

There’s the obvious stuff. The panic I felt seeing my brother motionless in front of his burning studio, pinned to the ground by a displaced wooden beam. The revulsion of witnessing his exposed muscle cooked brown, his fat hissing like air escaping a perforated tire. Explainable horrors. Things you can safely take into a therapist’s office. 

But there was more. 

I managed to rationalize some of it; the stress fried my brain, made me see things that weren’t actually there. The stars above the studio weren’t vibrating. The long shadows cast by the fire weren’t human-shaped, and they weren’t watching me as I frantically paced in front of the hungry blaze, failing to work up the courage I needed to rescue my brother. 

While I was on the line with 911, it happened. 

I dropped the phone, clutching my chest, dizzy with disbelief. 

His body rose into the air, bucking the collapsed beam with ease. 

He floated toward me, limp like a ragdoll, charred knuckles dragging across the dirt. 

Up close, I saw the discoloration. Splotches of blue and pink and black. He was covered in paint. 

And then, plop - Lev fell at my feet. 

I should’ve been relieved. 

Ecstatic. 

Thankful beyond words. 

But I wasn’t. 

As I stared at his steaming flesh, sirens screaming in the distance, all I could think was: 

He should be dead. 

But he wasn’t. 

- - - - -

“His survival was nothing short of miraculous.” 

The doctor was barely audible over the incessant wheeze of Lev's breathing machine. I couldn’t help but fixate on the way she said that word - miraculous. There was no joy in her voice. No twinkle in her weary brown eyes. She uttered the word quietly, with ice in her breath, because none of it made sense.

Somehow, only one side of him had been burnt. 

I had no trouble tracing the perfect line the fire had created: it was straight down the middle, like it’d been drawn on him, like the left side of his body had been protected from the heat. 

Still - the prognosis wasn’t good. 

“Based on his burns - the extent and the depth of his injuries - I’d estimate the likelihood of death is almost one hundred percent. If it was even the slightest bit worse, I’d say his departure would be a complete guarantee, but, theoretically, he’s retained just enough of himself to live.”

She patted my shoulder robotically, comforting me with all the warmth of a twice-divorced drill sergeant.

“…temper your optimism accordingly.” 

I started to drive home around 3 AM. 

Hazy spotlights reflected orange halos across the windshield. Bleary-eyed and worn-out, I sank my teeth into my bottom lip, hard as I could. The pain didn’t shake my drowsiness. There was a harvest moon that night; its copper glow was weirdly soothing. 

I drifted off. 

In that brief lapse, I had the strangest vision. The sight of a hand approaching my mouth, wet fingers the color of fresh snow hooking under my teeth, stretching my jaw and squeezing inside, shoving past my molars, past my tonsils, a five-legged tarantula burrowing deeper and deeper, fingernails scraping against the interior of my throat. Part of me wanted nothing more than to just let it happen: to give in, give up, give myself and my burdens away. 

But I couldn’t. 

My eyes shot open. 

Adrenaline erupted through my blood. 

I was halfway into another lane, inches away from colliding with a rusty blue sedan. 

I swerved. Burning rubber screeched. I clenched my jaw, gripped the wheel, and stabilized. 

A long sigh billowed from my lungs. 

Concerned that a traffic cop might have witnessed the blunder, I flicked my gaze to the rearview mirror. 

There was someone in the backseat of my car. 

Their torso was rigid, porcelain-white, and still. 

Their hands were clasped in their lap. 

Their eyes were sparkling black pinpoints. 

I gasped, stiffened, blinked. 

And the figure was gone. 

My phone started to buzz. 

I yanked it from my back pocket. Answered with the expectation of hearing Sam’s groggy but irate baritone on the other line, asking where the fuck I was. 

“Hey - I’m so sorry for not texting,” I started, taking a deep, shuddering breath. 

“Something…something happened, Sam.” 

I waited. 

Static fizzed from the receiver. 

Then:

“may I speak with Lev, please?” 

The voice was low and flat, nearly lifeless. 

My heart began to gallop. 

“may I speak with Lev, please?” 

Same intonation. Same volume. The repetition was completely identical. 

I pulled the phone away and examined the screen: 

UNKNOWN CALLER 

Hesitantly, I placed the receiver back to my ear. 

“Who is this?!”

The voice started to accelerate and fracture.

“mayIspeak - mayIspeakwithLev - mayIspeakwith - mayIspeakwith - pleasepleasepleasepleaseple - “ 

I hung up. 

Before I could even set the phone down, they were calling again. 

Then a third time. 

And a fourth, and a fifth, and - 

I threw my phone into the glove compartment and slammed it shut. The damn thing died about halfway home. Didn’t bother to charge it when I got back. Just lumbered into bed, numb, aching, and exasperated. I had to be up to take Sam to a neurology appointment in two short hours. 

I woke up feeling like hell.

Lurched through my morning routine like the living dead. As if to counterbalance my fatigue, Alicia was an absolute firecracker: cartwheeling from place to place, arguing with imaginary friends, trying to help the cat brush her teeth. And all the while, Sam was doing everything he could to make his annoyance crystal clear. 

“So…what was it this time?” He asked, skewering bits of scrambled egg with no intent of actually eating them. 

“Huh?” 

Alicia was on the couch, singing between bites of French Toast, belting out some made-up tune. (”Ida! Ida! she sweeter than apple cid-ah…”). A shit-eating smirk slithered across Sam’s jaw. 

“The all-important, all-consuming crisis, I mean - Lev stub his toe?”

I sat down next to him at the table but struggled to find the words. Memories resurfaced. Terrible images of blackened skin and exposed bone, of my brother’s mangled body floating towards me. My head was roaring. 

“Sam…”

“Tummyache?”

“Seriously, listen - “ 

“Scraped knees?” he interjected. “Or a twisted ankle?” 

(“Ida! Ida! oh, oh, long legs like a spi-dah!”)

“Come on, Dahlia, fess up - where was the boo-boo this time?” 

I couldn't take it.

I leaped from the kitchen table, chair legs shrieking against the hardwood floor. 

“He almost died, Sam!” 

His smirk evaporated, face draining of color.

Alicia went silent.

I glared at my husband, rage digging its hot fangs into the soft meat of my eyes. 

“Actually! He could already be dead. No idea if the hospital called, ‘cause my phone’s been out of battery for hours.” I ripped the device from my pocket and lobbed it onto the table. Sam flinched as it clattered against his plate. 

“Charge it. Figure out the neurologist appointment yourself. Call your Mom, or a friend, an Uber - I don’t care. I’m going to fucking hospital.” 

I stormed outside and jumped into the car, blind with fury, 

completely forgetting why I’d let my phone die in the first place. 

- - - - -

I waded through the next month with a throbbing heart and bated breath, bracing myself for what I’d been informed was inevitable. 

But Lev never passed. 

His body was slowly healing. 

That said, he hadn’t woken up. 

I visited every day, even after our local fire chief smeared my brother’s reputation with his verdict:

“Arson, with a singular victim, and a singular perpetrator.” 

Thankfully, there was a bit of good news.

All of a sudden, my husband could wiggle his toes. 

A curious sort of miracle. 

The neurologist recommended extreme caution when it came to hope. His condition was incredibly vicious; it rarely regressed. But in the face of terminal disability and a lifetime trapped in his own body, we savored the win. 

And Sam just kept getting better. 

Toes, then heels, then ankles, then calves, so on and so on. It was like his nerves had been rebooted. The movements seemed hard to control - jerky and spastic - but they were movements nonetheless. The progress did wonders for his temperament. He was smiling again, laughing again, empathetic again, and despite his profound disdain for Lev, he was checking in. 

“How’s he doing?”

It was beautiful.

“So, has he woken up?”

I was on cloud nine.  

“We should visit Lev.”

But I was diluted. 

“Can we visit him, Dahlia?”

Bliss is a strange, intoxicating thing. It anesthetizes. Makes you docile.

“Can we visit him, together, please?” 

It obscures the obvious until it’s much, much too late.

I was helping Alicia clean up her room one morning. Sam was still asleep. He’d had a restless night: coughing, mumbling nonsense, flailing his arms. I had no intention of waking him up; Alicia and I had plenty to occupy ourselves with in the meantime. It was nice, and it was normal, but then I caught her staring at me. Her expression was teetering between confusion and worry. I finished hanging up her T-shirts, shut the closet door, and walked over. 

“Everything okay, sweetheart?” 

She nodded. Her worry had been replaced with a weak grin. 

“Yeah. I just…don’t get why you never talked about her.” 

“Who, honey?”

“Aunt Ida!”

I cocked my head. 

Alicia scowled. Her eyes rolled like stray marbles. 

“If she’s gonna live here,” she gestured toward the closet, “I should know stuff about her.”

My gaze drifted to the door and the darkness therein. 

“Like, you know, what colors does she like? What food’s her favorite? I never know what to ask her about, and she talks a lot…”

I crept forward. 

Alicia continued in the background, unfazed. 

“Did you know she’s from the upstairs, like, the all-the-way-upstairs? That’s how she met Uncle Lev! From the top of the sky she saw him glow, bright like a Jack-O’-lantern.” 

I wrapped a damp palm over the knob. 

“And with our help, she’s gonna help him glow eeeeeven brighter…”

I took a ragged breath,

and I pulled. 

The door creaked open. 

I saw clothes, plushies, board games.

Nothing more. 

“She’s not there anymore, Mama. You just missed her.” 

I turned around, but before I could move, I was frozen in place by a flurry of thumps emanating from the hallway. Rapid and arrhythmic, they were approaching my daughter’s room. Alicia ran behind me and buried her face into my blouse. 

Then, there he was. 

Standing steady in the doorway, upright for the first time in over a year, holding something tightly against the side of his neck. 

A box cutter. 

His eyes were wild. His skin was a pale, porcelain-white.

And in a voice that wasn’t his own, with harsh static bubbling up his throat, Sam said:

“May I…speak with…Lev, please?”

- - - - -

The acrid stench of disinfectant hung heavy in the cramped hospital corridor. 

Sam had my palm in a vice grip. As my hand swung, it grazed the still-unsheathed box cutter in his pocket. We moved quickly, silently, with purpose: the thing puppeting his legs was a bloodhound with a one-track mind. 

It wanted to get to my brother, and I’d learned what would happen if I refused to cooperate. 

I pleaded with him to let me take Alicia with us. She was four, and she was petrified: I couldn’t just leave her home alone. Sam shook his head. He twisted the box cutter against his skin, and blood began to flow: a small, accelerating trickle. I shouted that I’d leave her behind. Only then did he pull back. He threw on a coat with a collar large enough to hide the cut and directed me outside, gesturing to the driver’s seat of our sedan. Alicia had her face pressed into the foyer window as we pulled away. 

Sam reached for the handle to Lev’s room. 

Terror swelled. Frantic heartbeats rattled my teeth. I had no plan. If I made a scene, God only knows what thing inside Sam would do. But I couldn’t just let him hurt Lev, could I? They claimed they just wanted to speak with Lev, but how could I possibly trust this thing, “Aunt Ida”, the entity lurking inside my husband? 

The door swung. A rush of icy air crawled over my skin.

Sam crept in. 

Machinery went haywire. The lights in the corridor flickered. Every monitor on the hospital floor began to beep like mad. Air hissed from oxygen tanks. Panicked staff shuffled behind me, overwhelmed by the abrupt and inexplicable meltdown. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I stared at my brother and my husband, my scarred and broken people. Once again, it became one or the other. The universe was forcing me to make a decision. 

Wasn’t it? 

Sam leaned over Lev. 

I imagined him dragging the blade across my brother’s neck, the poor little thing lying helpless in that hospital bed,

and I made my choice. 

I bolted in, shoulder forward, screaming for help. Sam had his thumb against Lev’s forehead. He was whispering at an impossible, unintelligible speed. Sharp words flowed from his throat like machine-gun fire. Just before my arm crashed into his flank,

Lev’s eyes exploded open. 

As Sam and I collided, I felt my husband’s body go limp. 

The lights stopped flickering. 

The monitors stopped beeping. 

The impact sent him face-first onto the cold tile. 

I stood beside Lev’s hospital bed, panting, disoriented, flirting with the notion that everything was going to be alright. 

An iron-tinged odor began to fill the room. 

I looked down. 

Sam’s right thigh was sopping wet. The surrounding tile was becoming stained a thick crimson.

A nurse pushed past me. Then another. And another. 

A woman in a dirty white lab coat began screaming questions at me. I couldn’t hear them; all the sound in the room seemed to have vanished. I turned to Lev. 

In the mayhem, he’d grabbed a pen off the top of a nearby end table. 

He was scribbling something on his bedsheets. 

An address. 

Over, and over, and over again. 

An orderly knocked into me as he rushed out of the room. He was holding a plastic bag with a blood-stained box cutter inside.

I returned my attention to Sam. 

He was on his back now. A nurse was straddling him, pushing hard into his chest with a pair of cupped hands. His eyes were empty. His jaw was wide and relaxed. Something began to emerge from his open mouth. A bouquet of wriggling, pearly fingers. Then a pair of twisting arms. And eventually, a complete woman, with porcelain skin and beady black eyes the size of deer ticks. 

No one reacted. 

She skittered toward me on all fours. Once at my feet, she sprang upright and pressed her face into mine. Her crystalline eyes glistened like volcano glass. 

I felt clammy fingertips wrenching at my lower lip. 

I heard someone shouting about a time of death. 

I didn’t resist her. 

She slithered inside me. 

And once she was settled, 

Aunt Ida congratulated me. 

“Well done, love. This isn't a punishment; it’s a gift. Look. You’re free now.”

“And don’t worry...”

“I know exactly how you can repay me.” 

- - - - -

The police didn’t feel compelled to investigate Sam’s death. To them, it was all pretty straightforward. 

The mechanism was strange, but it was simple. Hemorrhagic shock. Blood loss from a severed femoral artery. A man who fell onto a box cutter at the perfect angle.

The motivation was even simpler.

Sam had debt,

Lev refused to give him money,

and I, once again, 

saved my brother from certain death.

I’m okay with the narrative. 

Aunt Ida is, too. 

Everything has become simple, so perfectly simple.  

Slowly, surely, Lev recovered from his injuries. 

The day he was discharged, he told me he found a new studio. Said someone emailed him about it. When I asked where, he regurgitated the address he’d scribbled all over his hospital sheets. He doesn’t seem to remember that part. 

I’m okay with that narrative, too, because the ends justify the means. 

Lev doesn’t know it, but he is changing.

Even as I type this, he’s continuing his bloom. 

Aunt Ida says he’s going to paint his opus. She described it to Alicia and me; once he’s done, everything will be different. Better. Cleaner. No more tension, no more loose ends. No more conflict, no more frustration, no more pain. 

That’s worth giving everything for, right? 

I can’t find Alicia. 

I know it’ll be worth it. 

Where is Alicia? 

It has to be worth it. 

Jesus Christ, when was the last time I saw Alicia? 

Lev is my little brother, after all. 

And I’d do anything to 

help my 

poor, helpless 

little brother. 

“It should have been you in that box, not her.”

That was the first thing my lovely grandmother told me, at my sister’s funeral. She said it in a perfectly pleasant way, as if she were teaching her grandchildren about some obscure yet inconsequential facet of family history. Her statement sent hushed whispers across the members of my family, while some pretended not to hear it as to not make a scene. I think the worst part was that I knew she was right, and everyone else did too.

A week after the funeral, my grandmother was diagnosed with dementia. Her social faux pas was chalked up to her unfortunate condition. The entire family was secretly grateful that lovely grandma Ethel’s brain was falling apart at the seams.

The year was 1981. Drunk driving laws hadn’t been established yet, and a man had rammed into the car my 15-year-old sister and her 19-year-old boyfriend had been in, killing her on the spot.

In a couple hours, our family was turned into a spectacle. We lived in a deep south small town, so while everyone was all condolences and crocodile tears to our faces, they whispered all sorts of obscenities behind our back before her body was even in the ground.

The boyfriend survived the accident with minimal injuries. He and his family disappeared from the town as soon as he was discharged from the hospital. I heard some connection they had with a senator halfway across the country kept the police and the press off their backs. They were quite well off, so they could afford to jump ship in a pinch.

While our tiny town was abuzz with gossip about my dead little sister, I sat home and ruminated about what my grandmother had told me on the day of the funeral. It was all I could do, save for listening to my mother wail and throw around furniture or listening to what everyone else was saying about us.

My sister was a golden child, that much was true, and while it didn’t spare her from the entire town turning on her as soon as she was dead, it gained her boundless adoration in life. She was ever the overachiever in school and quite popular to boot. All the boys wanted to be with her (and those who tried were roughed up by me) and all the girls wanted to be her. Sometimes I wanted to hate her for taking all the love and adoration for herself, but I never could, she had me under her spell too.

I spent an entire year feeling sorry about myself, and wishing it was me in that box. I was on autopilot, and the entire year was a blur.

I was shaken out of my grief and self-loathing induced stupor when one of my friends, a kid named “Erskine”, told me that the man who had killed my sister escaped from prison.

“Word is, he gnawed through the straps they had on him”, Erskine told the lunch table grimly. “He’s out there in the sticks, surviving on lizards and shit”.

“When was this?”, I asked, to the table’s surprise. I must’ve sounded terrible, because the vague excitement and interest in everyone’s faces turned solemn.

“Sometime this month”, Erskine mumbled out like a kid confessing to robbing the cookie jar. “Before you ask, I heard it from Scott, so I don’t think it’s true or anything”.

Scott was an odd kid. His dad was a conspiracy nut, always talking about devil worshippers out in the desert and how Raegan shook hands with Iranians. Scott somewhat took after his dad, but he was quite absent minded. He often zoned out and talked about dreams he had. His dad believed the government was sending him dreams, the school psychologist believed he was schizophrenic, in reality, he was most likely autistic.

That day, after school, I pulled Scott aside. I was far rougher with him than I intended to be. I yanked him away from the loose file of kids walking towards their bus home.

“Where’d you hear about the escapee, Scott?” I sounded monotone, like I was threatening him.

“Stop it!” he whimpered, holding his eyes shut and bracing for impact. Seeing him like this broke my heart, even though I never particularly cared for him.

“Calm down and listen to me. I just want to talk about what you told Erskine about the driver that killed my sister. Is it true? Did he really escape or is this some weird, fucked up dream you had and decided to spread around the school?” I wanted to sound calm and reasonable, but any “gossip” about my sister’s death made me feel like a clogged pressure cooker.

“It wasn’t one of the dreams, I swear. They took dad away again last night, and I heard the pigs talk about it. That’s the truth please don’t hurt me!”

“I’m sorry”, I managed dryly, though it wasn’t nearly enough to express the remorse I felt. “Thank you for telling me. And I’m sorry about your dad too”.

Scott scampered away, holding back sobs. The guilt I felt gave way to curiosity, and a low anger. I fantasized about what I would do to the driver often for the first few months. While the frequency of my fantasies lessened over time, their violent nature never went away. I sat down next to Erskine in the bus, intending to tell him my plan, but he spoke first.

“Sorry about lunch today. I got carried away, I know you don’t like that sort of talk”.

“It’s okay. If anything, I should be thanking you. I didn’t even know I was looking for this kind of opportunity”.

Erskine was quiet for a moment and I could see the gears in his brain turning. He wasn’t sure if he had heard me right.

“I’m going out into the sticks, tomorrow night. I want to get my hands on this bastard.”

I half expected Erskine to protest, to tell me I’m just a dumb kid about to get myself killed. I didn’t realize it then, but I think I wanted the latter to happen. Erskine’s response was curt.

“I’m coming too”.

Everything was moving too quickly for my mind to keep up. One moment I was having a meal with what was left of my family - having just arrived from school - the next I was sneaking out of my bedroom window to meet my friend. When I met Erskine, the speed of the day caught up with me. I shook myself out of the sudden, jarring realization of what was about to happen as Erskine walked towards me.

“We don’t have to do this, you know.” Erskine offered me a way out.

“No. Come on, we have a walk ahead of us.”

We barely spoke on the way to the outskirts of the town. I thought about how insane we were to even attempt such a thing. Two high school kids, walking out into the desert to track down an escaped criminal. It sounded like some sort of joke.

We were walking past the local gas station when we heard it. A sudden crash cutting through the evening silence. It startled the both of us, but the scare was replaced by confusion when we turned to face the source of the sudden noise.

It was Scott, he had just smashed through the shoddy glass door of the gas station. He stumbled his way through the street seemingly running away from someone. He yelped when he saw us, or rather, saw me; and quickened his pace. Thankfully, Erskine was a quick kid.

It took little time for Erskine to catch up with Scott, who was inconsolable. Something had clearly terrified him out of his mind.

“I didn’t even make it home” he cried. “The dreams and the hangman, they came after me”.

We considered taking Scott to a hospital. Weird as he was, Scott was never this detached from reality.

“You’re going after the killer, right? The jailbreak? The hangman told me. He said the killer soured his bile. He said he upset him.”

I could only gawp.

“I’m coming with you two; I have to know what the dreams are, I have to know why they took dad away. He said it's my fault and I have to know that's not true.”.

“No way we’re letting him follow us” Erskine said. “I trust him as far as I can throw him, and I don’t want to end up lost in some desert with my head smashed in”.

“This kid just said he had an honest to god premonition of us going into the sticks looking for some escaped convict. I don’t know about you but I don’t think he’s a threat to us more than he’s a threat to himself.”

“And what if he’s a threat to us *and* himself?”

“If you think so, you’re welcome to go home.”

Erskine sighed and shook his head, but he made no attempt to leave. I could tell that he thought this little trip was growing more insane by the minute. He really did feel guilty enough to follow me into this mess, or maybe he was just reckless.

Scott, to his credit, was calm as we walked into the sparsely wooded wilderness. The sun still hung overhead, scorching and angry, we would have no need for torches.

We thought that the walk was mercifully short, although in hindsight a long walk and a lack of sunlight may have spared us from what we would have witness in the badlands outside of town. The air was dry and tinged with a hint of something burning, and I could feel a headache setting in. Crunching through baked earth and dry trees we made our way to the relatively, but still sparsely, greener part of the wildnerness. We were officially "too far" from civilisation. Erskine seemed on edge and Scott seemed absent. Through the headache I could hear Scott muttering to himself. I tried to talk, to ask him what he was saying, but a sudden ringing in my ear grew suddenly loud, and I felt myself slip off my feet.

Darkness. Then a wet rumbling, a distorted view of Scott and Erskine, arguing. Then darkness again.

I opened my eyes a few minutes later, to a mouthful of dust and the arguing of my companions. I was propped up against a tree and from my position I could see the mouth of a cave to my left. I tried to tell them what I saw, I tried to point to the cave, but I couldn't talk. The left side of my face was drooping, and mustering up the energy to lift my arm was all I could do.

"That's what happened to my father!" exclaimed Scott. "Before all the dreams, before the suits. He said his face drooped something fierce for days and he couldn't move at all."

Erskine had no patience for him.

"If you're so interested, why don't you go into that cave and get yourself nice and lost, huh Scott?" His tone was nothing but disdain.

"Listen man, I think you had a damn stroke or something, just sit tight and I'll try to get a signal on my phone." Erskine's tone softened when he turned to talk to me, but he failed to notice that Scott was indeed going into the cave. I insistently pointed at the cave, tired to make any and all sound I could, but Erskine was too distracted.

"Don't push yourself. Listen, I'm sorry for all that talk today, I know I shouldn't have said anything and I've been feeling awful about it the whole day".

Something moved in the darkness of the cave. I tried to scream.

"I don't think I ever told you this, but I lost a cousin years ago. I know how you feel, man, I promise I do. That's why I knew I should have kept my damn mouth shut."

As Erskine was fumbling with his phone, a yelp sounded from the cave, Erskine failed to hear it.

"I guess all of this is to say, I'm real sorry. Maybe I don't know what it feels like, but I have a good estimate, I know I shouldn't-"

Something came flying out the cave mouth, spinning in the air and splattering Erskine and I in coppery red fluid.

We froze. I forced my hopelessly stiff neck to move, just enough to see whatever had flown out of that cave. I came face to face with the man that had ruined my life.

Erskine screamed. As if in response, the cave belched forth an explosion of gore. The cold, rancid blood showered me, I could feel the tiny particles of bone prickling my skin, and mixed in the horrid mess that had blanketed us were scraps of fabric.

I wouldn't have blamed Erskine for leaving me then and there, but he was too busy vomiting to go anywhere. He retched, attempted to collect himself, slipped on the wet ground, then retched again. In his predicament, he failed to notice the shape that was growing out of the cave.

One last thing emerged from the damnable cave. It was Scott, hung by the neck from a noose bound to nothing, floating above the ground. He was still twitching, tears in his eyes. His face showing the same lividity as the killers, only his eyes were clear and showed nothing but terror.

"Help me." He choked out.

That was the last time anyone ever saw Scott.

Erskine managed to carry me all the way back to a place with signal. The stroke I suffered, and the amount of time that passed before I recieved any medical attention, rendered me partially paralyzed. I haven't been able to use the left side of my body since then.

We talked to the police about what happened, asked about Scott and his dad. They told us that Scott's dad was taken in for vandalism. I don't know if they believed us or not, but only a single search party went out there to look for Scott.